UC-NRLF 


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fifl    fl?5 


PENNSYLVANIA. 


WHARTON  SCHOOL  STUDIES 


•IN- 


POLITICS  AND  ECONOMICS. 


Vol.  I. 


JUNE,  1891. 


No.  i. 


THE  RECENT  DEVELOPMENT 


-OF- 


AMERICAN  INDUSTRIES 

— BY  THE — 

CLASS  OF  'or, 

Wharton  School  of  Finance  and  Economy, 

UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 


JAMES  M ANDERSON  CASTLE, 
JEfLovi)  CARPENTER  GRIH<. 

£IlSAYA  IWASAKI, 

WILLIAM  GRAY  KNOWL. 

CHARLES  RIDGELY  !.= 

DAVID  MANUEL,  JR., 

WILLIAM  STEPHEN  OT:TKRBRIDGE,  JR., 


HARVEY  KLMORR  PLATT, 

WILM::R  HERSHICY  Ku,. 

WiL/.i  i.-r, 

HENK 

GEORGI-  ^MITH, 

cs  DE  Pui  VAIL. 
CHARLES  WILLIAM  A.  Vi 


University  of  Pennsylvania  Press,  Philadelphia. 


PRICE  FIFTY  CI-. 


GIFT  OF 


THE 

UNIVERSITY; 
^fiareiit^ 


SIMON  N.  PATTEN,   PH.  D.   (HALLE). 
Professor  of  Political  Economy  at  the  University  of  Pennsylvania. 


PUBLICATIONS  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 


WHARTON  SCHOOL  STUDIES 

IN 

POLITICS  AND  ECONOMICS. 

Vol.  I.  JUNE,  1891.  No.  i 

THE  RECENT  DEVELOPMENT 


AMERICAN  INDUSTRIES, 

— BY  THE — 

CLASS  OF  '91, 

Wharton  School  of  Finance  and  Economy, 

UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 


JAMES  MANDERSON  CASTLE,  HARVEY  ELMORE  PLATT, 

LLOYD  CARPENTER  GRISCOM,  WILMER  HERSHEY  RIGHTER, 

HlSAYA  IWASAKI,  WILLIAM  BENI  ROSSKAM, 

WILLIAM  GRAY  KNOWLES,  HENRY  HALL  SINNAMON, 

CHARLES  RIDGELY  LEE,  GEORGE  HUGHES  SMITH, 

DAVID  MANDEL,  JR.,  LOUIS  DE  Pui  VAIL. 
WILLIAM  STEPHEN  OUTERBRIDGE,  JR.,          CHARLES  WILLIAM  A.  VEDITZ. 


University  of  Pennsylvania  Press,  Philadelphia. 


ur  103 
V 


PREFACE. 


Works  on  Political  Economy,  as  a  general  rule,  draw  their 
illustrations  from  an  industrial  state  which  has  to  a  large 
degree  passed  away  at  the  time  of  their  writing.  The  stu- 
dent of  them  fails  therefore  to  get  a  true  idea  of  the  then 
existing  industrial  conditions. 

It  was  with  the  idea  of  finding  out  what  the  industrial 
state  of  the  United  States  at  present  is,  that  we  first  con- 
ceived the  plan  of  writing  this  book.  Dr.  Patten  suggested 
to  us  that  each  should  take  some  one  industry;  find  out 
what  its  development  had  been  in  recent  years  and  how  it 
stood  to-day,  and  should  write  the  result  of  his  investiga- 
tions as  a  graduation  thesis.  This  book  is  the  result  of  our 
labors. 

We  wish  to  take  this  opportunity  of  expressing  our  regret 
that  the  thesis  of  Mr.  C.  W.  A.  Veditz,  on  "  Pottery  in  the 
U.  S.,"  was  not  included  with  the  others  in  this  book,  as  he 
was  taken  sick  with  typhoid  fever  before  he  had  completed 
his  essay. 

In  conclusion,  we  wish  to  thank  all  those  who  have  aided 
us  in  any  way  in  our  search  for  facts  about  our  respective 
subjects. 

THE  CLASS  OF  '91. 


'^/ 


PUBLICATION  COMMITTEE. 


WlLMER   H.    RlGHTER, 

HARVEY  E.  PLATT, 
LLOYD  C.  GRISCOM, 
WILLIAM  G.  KNOWLES, 
GEORGE  H.  SMITH. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 
THE  STEEL  INDUSTRY— WILMER  H.  RIGHTER 7 

CHAPTER  II. 
THE  UNITED  STATES  MERCHANT  MARINE — LLOYD  C.  GRISCOM    .    14 

CHAPTER  III. 
THE  CARPET  INDUSTRY — HARVEY  E.  PLATT 25 

CHAPTER  IV. 
THE  WORSTED  INDUSTRY— Louis  DE  P.  VAIL .   .   .    33 

CHAPTER  V. 
•COTTON  MANUFACTURES — WILLIAM  B.  ROSSKAM 39 

CHAPTER  VI. 
ELECTRICITY — WILLIAM  S.  OUTERBRIDGE,  JR -  .   .   46 

CHAPTER  VII. 
THE  SUGAR  INDUSTRY — GEORGE  H.  SMITH 56 

.  CHAPTER  VIII. 
THE  FELT  INDUSTRY — DAVID  MANDEL,  JR 63 

CHAPTER  IX. 
THE  CANNING  INDUSTRY — WILLIAM  G.  KNOWLES 69 

CHAPTER  X. 
MEAT  PRODUCTS— JAMES  M.  CASTLE 77 

CHAPTER  XI. 
IMPROVEMENTS  IN  LOCOMOTIVES — HENRY  H.  SINNAMON    ....    84 

CHAPTER  XII. 
GOLD  AND  SILVER  MINING — HISAYA  IWASAKI 93 

CONCLUSION. 
NEW  INDUSTRIAL  CENTERS— CHARLES  R.  LEE 104 


THE  RECENT  DEVELOPMENT 

— OF — 

AMERICAN  INDUSTRIES 


CHAPTER  I. 
THE  STEEL  INDUSTRY. 

Probably  no  other  industy  of  the  United  States  has  de- 
veloped as  rapidly  during  the  last  few  years  as  the  steel  in- 
dustry. In  1860  the  total  steel  product  of  the  United  States 
amounted  to  only  11,838  tons.  In  1890  the  total  product 
amounted  to  4,466,926  tons,  or  377  times  the  product  of  thirty 
years  ago.  In  1860  steel  was  produced  in  but  three  States  of 
the  Union,  Pennsylvania,  New  York  and  New  Jersey.  In 
1890  nineteen  States  were  engaged  in  its  production.  There 
were  but  thirteen  establishments  engaged  in  steel  production 
in  1860,  and  only  thirty  in  1870.  In  1890  one  hundred  and 
fifty-eight  completed  steel  works  were  in  operation. 

The  cause  of  this  great  increase  in  the  production  and  con- 
sumption of  steel  was  the  cheapening  of  the  cost  of  making 
steel,  brought  about  by  the  discovery  of  the  Bessemer  and 
open-hearth  processes.  So  effectual  have  they  been  that 
to-day  steel  can  be  made  at  a  less  cost  than  iron.  Before 
1864  the  crucible  and  cementation  processes  were  chiefly 
used  in  making  steel,  but  in  1890  86  per  cent,  of  the  steel 
made  was  by  the  Bessemer  process.  The  open-hearth 
process  was  first  successfully  tried  at  Trenton,  N.  J.,  in  1868. 
In  1890  over  n  per  cent,  of  the  total  steel  product  was  made 
in  this  way. 

Steel  was  first  made  into  rails  about  1867,  but  it  was  not 
until  1 872  that  iron  rails  began  to  give  way  before  steel  rails. 
Since  then  the  latter,  on  account  of  their  greater  durability, 


8  The  Recent  Development  of 

have  rapidly  driven  the  former  out  of  use.  In  1888,  72.3  per 
cent,  of  the  railroad  mileage  of  the  United  States  was  laid 
with  steel  rails.  In  1890  the  Pennsylvania  railroad  alone 
used  in  construction  and  repairs  in  all  its  lines  83,130  tons  of 
new  steel  rails.  The  rail  trade  consumes  a  very  large  por- 
tion of  the  steel  produced,  especially  of  the  Bessemer  steel. 
In  the  census  year  of  1890,  of  the  3,877,039  tons  of  Bessemer 
steel  ingots  produced  2,036,654  tons  were  made  into  steel  rails, 
and  during  the  calendar  year  1889,  of  the  3,281,829  tons  of 
Bessemer  steel  ingots  produced,  1,691,264  were  made  into 
steel  rails.  At  present  the  steel  rail  production  is  controlled 
by  six  companies,  one  in  Chicago,  111.,  which  makes  about 
one-third  of  all  the  steel  rails,  and  five  in  Pennsylvania, 
located  as  follows  :  one  in  Pittsburg,  one  in  Johnstown, 
one  in  Steelton,  one  in  Scranton,  and  one  in  Bethlehem. 
Their  total  annual  capacity  is  2,600,000  tons. 

Iron  gave  way  to  steel  in  the  construction  of  vessels  in 
1878.  Since  then  steel  has  become  the  favorite  material  for 
large  ships,  so  that,  to-day,  next  to  rails,  this  is  one  of  the 
most  important  uses  of  steel.  The  advantages  of  steel  vessels 
are  many.  Much  larger  vessels  can  be  built  of  steel  than  it 
would  be  safe  to  build  of  wood.  They  are  also  much  lighter, 
and  therefore  will  carry  more  cargo  with  the  same  draught 
of  water.  Steel  ships  are  not  subject  to  decay,  but  with 
proper  attention  will  last  fifty  years  or  more,  and  finally  the 
expense  for  insurance  is  less  in  a  steel  than  in  a  wooden 
ship.  The  advantage  of  ships  of  steel  over  iron  lies  in  the 
fact  that  an  equal  strength  with  less  weight  can  be  had. 
The  importance  of  steel  as  a  factor  in  ship-building  can  be 
seen  from  the  following  table  of  the  vessels  built  in  the  world 
in  1888  : 

MATERIAL.  NUMBER.      TONNAGE. 

Steel,     -  451  780,496  tons. 

Iron,  106  75>382      " 

Wood,   -  -      203  68,300      " 

Composition,  -                         5  2,345       " 

765  926,523      " 


American  Industries.  9 

In  the  fiscal  year  1889,  twenty-six  steel  vessels  were 
launched  in  the  United  States  with  a  tonnage  of  31,783.87 
tons.  Fourteen  were  for  ocean  trade  and  twelve  for  the  lake 
trade.  Steel  was  first  used  in  the  construction  of  vessels 
for  trade  on  the  great  lakes  in  1884,  and  since  then  this 
industry  has  developed  so  rapidly  that  at  the  opening  of 
navigation  this  spring  there  will  be  about  eighty  steel  ves- 
sels in  commission  on  the  lakes,  nearly  all  of  them  steamers 
of  large  capacity.  There  are  now  eight  ship  yards,  located 
at  Cleveland,  Chicago,  Buffalo,  etc.,  engaged  in  making 
these  ships. 

The  United  States  Government  has  of  late  years  been 
using  a  great  deal  of  steel  for  its  navy.  The  new  vessels 
have  been  built  of  steel,  have  been  protected  with  steel 
armor,  have  been  armed  with  steel  guns  and  have  been  given 
steel  projectiles  to  fire  from  the  guns.  Since  1885  the  follow- 
ing steel  vessels  have  been  started  or  contracted  for  : 

Armored  cruisers  and  battle  ships,  14* 

Unarmored  cruisers,  -     14 

Gun  boats,    -  9 

Torpedo  boats,  2 

Dynamite  gun  vessel,  -  i 

Of  these  eleven  are  now  in  commission  and  seven  more  are 
nearly  completed.  Until  recently  all  the  steel  armor  made  in 
the  United  States  was  produced  at  the  Bethlehem  Iron  Works 
at  South  Bethlehem,  Pa.,  but  now  the  Government  has  also 
a  contract  with  Carnegie,  Phipps  &  Co.,  of  Pittsburg,  Pa., 
to  supply  it  with  either  armor  of  the  kind  now  used  or  with 
armor  made  of  steel  alloyed  with  a  small  per  cent,  of  nickel, 
which  recent  experiments  seem  to  show  will  make  much 
better  and  stronger  armor  than  has  yet  been  used. 

Besides  the  steel  used  in  its  ships  the  Government  uses  a 
large  amount  of  steel  for  ordnance.  Four  Pennsylvania  steel 
works  are  now  fitted  to  make  gun  forgings.  Two  of  them 
can  make  forgings  for  guns  as  large  as  thirteen  inches  in 
caliber.  These  forgings  are  sent  to  the  United  States  gun 

*Five  are  old  iron-clad  monitors,  which  have  been  rebuilt. 


io  The  Recent  Development  of 

factories  at  Watervliet,  R.  I.,  and  Washington,  D.  C.  (chiefly 
to  the  latter),  and  are  there  turned  into  cannon.  The  fol- 
lowing table  may  be  of  interest  in  this  connection  : 

Caliber,  Guns  completed.      Guns  under  construction       F'orgings  ordered, 

inches.  at  Washington. 

4  4  12  35 

5  2  4 

6  .77  25  128 
8                       15                           2  35 

.   I0  4  3  25 

12.  2  6 

13  12 

Open  hearth  steel  is  used  for  these,  as  it  is  best  adapted 
for  making  large  ingots  with  least  cost.  Steel  guns  are 
better  than  iron,  as  they  weigh  less  and  impart  more  energy 
to  the  projectile.  Projectiles  too  are  now  made  either  entirely 
or  partly  of  steel,  as  nothing  but  the  hardest  steel  can  do 
any  damage  to  the  armor  now  used. 

Another  very  recent  use  of  steel  is  the  employment  of 
pressed  steel  in  car  construction.  "About  12,000  tons  of 
pressed  steel  have  gone  into  car  construction  during  the  last 
two  and  a  half  years,  consisting  of  spring-plates,  side-bear- 
ings, drawbar  attachments,  corner  bands,  journal  box  lids, 
center-plates,  stake-pockets,  etc."*  The  advantages  of  mak- 
ing these  of  steel  in  place  of  cast  iron  are,  that  steel  articles 
will  withstand  greater  shocks  without  inj  ury  and  will  weigh 
less  than  cast-iron  articles.  Before  long  entire  railroad  cars 
will  be  made  of  pressed  steel.  The  cost  will  be  about  the 
same  as  that  of  wooden  cars.  They  can  carry  twice  as  much 
and  will  weigh  much  less.  The  Harvey  Steel  Company  of 
Chicago  is  now  engaged  in  making  twenty-five  steel  cars 
and  the  Schoen  Manufacturing  Co.  is  preparing  to  make 
steel  gondolas  of  60,000  Ibs.  capacity. 

The  manufacture  of  wire  is  to-day  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant branches  of  the  steel  industry.  Steel  wire  is  now 
used  in  great  quantities  for  telegraph  and  telephone  service. 
It  is  also  used  for  barbed  wire  fences,  for  door  mats,  for  mat- 

*€has.  P.  .Schoen  in  an  address  to  the  New  York  Railroad  Club. 


American  Industries.  n 

ting,  for  belts  and  for  stage  scenery.  Among  the  other  im- 
portant uses  of  steel  are  the  following:  in  buildings,  for 
machinery  of  every  description,-  for  locomotives  and  engines, 
for  nails  and  tools,  for  pens  and  needles,  for  cutlery,  for 
bridges,  etc.,  etc. 

There  is  no  other  recent  method  of  making  steel  that 
can  equal  the  basic  process  in  point  of  importance.  The 
old  or  acid  process  requires  pig  iron  to  be  used  which  con- 
tains a  very  small  per  cent,  of  phosphorus — hardly  a  few 
hundredths  of  one  per  cent.  This  pig  iron  must  therefore  be 
made  from  ores  which  have  an  equally  small  per  cent,  of 
phosphorus.  Such  ores  are  becoming  exhausted,  and  it  is 
therefore  now  becoming  necessary  to. use  ores  which  contain 
a  per  cent,  of  phorphorous  too  large  to  be  available  for  the 
acid  process.  The  objection  to  phosphorus  in  steel  lies  in  the 
fact  that  it  makes  the  metal  non-homogeneous,  and  by  being 
unequally  distributed,  makes  it  brittle  when  worked  cold. 
It  also  weakens  the  steel  when  reheated.  All  this  is  obviated 
by  using  the  basic  process.  The  difference  between  it  and 
the  acid  process  is  in  the  lining  of  the  converter  or  hearth. 
Instead  of  ganister  (a  kind  of  lime  rock)  being  used  for  this 
lining,  lime,  magnesite  or  some  other  basic  material  is  used. 
This  basic  lining  cleanses  the  pig  iron  of  its  phosphorus  and 
other  impurities,  in  place  of  leaving  them  all  in  the  steel,  as 
the  acid  lining  does.  As  a  result,  steel  made  by  this  process 
is  much  softer  than  metal  made  by  the  other  plan.  Basic 
steel  was  first  made  in  this  country,  as  a  commercial  product, 
on  March  28th,  1888,  at  the  Homestead  Steel  Works,  in 
Pennsylvania,  and  since  then  it  has  rapidly  grown  in  favor, . 
•62,173  tons  of  it  being  made  in  the  census  year  1890. 

The  Hadfield  method  is  another  recent  process.  It  pro- 
duces a  very  hard  steel  which  has  a  high  tensile  strength 
and  is  very  tough.  The  open  hearth  or  the  crucible  process 
is  used,  and  about  loper  cent,  of  manganese  added  in  process 
of  manufacture.  One  sample  of  this  steel  showed  an  elonga- 
tion no  greater  after  a  pull  of  115,000  Ibs.  on  it  than  ordinary 
steel  showed  after  a  pull  of  75,000  Ibs.  Another  interest- 
ing mode  of  making  steel  is  what  is  called  the  Adams 


12  The  Recent  Development  of 

direct  process.  It  is  now  used  by  four  Pennsylvania  steel 
works.  The  advantage  of  this  process  lies  in  the  lessening 
of  the  cost.  The  reason  of  this  is  because,  as  it  is  claimed, 
an  open  hearth  furnace  using  the  Adams  process  can  turn 
out  three  heats  in  the  same  time  that  another  furnace  can 
turn  out  two.  The  essential  difference  between  this  process 
and  the  one  usually  used  is  that  ore  is  used  as  the  prin- 
cipal and  pig  iron  as  the  subordinate  ingredient,  hence 
it  is  sometimes  called  the  "  ore  and  pig"  process.  Among 
other  recent  and  important  advances  in  steel  manufacture 
are,  the  Bolton  process  for  compressing  steel  ingots,  the 
latest  process  for  rolling  cold  steel,  the  Mannesman  process 
for  rolling  steel  tubes  from  solid  bars,  and  the  Symonds  pro- 
cess for  rolling  articles  of  almost  any  shape,  round  or  cylin- 
drical. 

The  steel  industry,  which  twenty  years  ago  was  located 
only  in  New  England  and  the  Middle  Atlantic  States,  has 
now  spread  into  the  West  and  South.  Pennsylvania,  how- 
ever, still  maintains  her  position  as  leading  steel  producer. 
Exactly  one-half  of  the  steel  works  of  the  United  States  are 
located  in  her  borders;  61.97  Per  cent,  of  all  the  steel  made 
in  1890  was  produced  by  her  works.  Illinois  is  now  second 
on  the  list  with  fourteen  steel  works  and  19.44  Per  cent,  of 
total  production  to  her  credit,  and  Ohio  third  with  eighteen 
works  and  10  per  cent,  of  total  production.  The  other  six- 
teen steel  producing  States  have  forty-seven  works  and  in  1890 
produced  altogether  8.59  per  cent,  of  all  the  steel  that  was 
made  in  the  United  States. 

In  the  South  the  steel  industry  is  as  yet  in  its  infancy. 
The  two  leading  steel  plants  in  that  section  are  the  Southern 
Iron  Co.'s,  at  Chattanooga,  Tenn.,  and  the  Henderson  Steel 
and  Manufacturing  Co.'s,  at  Birmingham,  Ala.  This  latter 
company  produced  on  February  2yth,  1888,  the  first  steel 
ever  made  in  the  South.  In  1890  there  were  all  told  but  ten 
steel  works  in  the  South.  Their  total  product  for  that  year 
was  184,625  tons,  183,225  tons  of  which  were  made  by  the 
two  West  Virginia  works.  Two  others  of  the  ten  were  not 
in  operation  in  that  year.  The  basic  process  is  the  one  best 


American  Industries.  13 

suited  for  use  in  the  South,  and  their  works  are  being  fitted 
to  use  that  process. 

In  the  far  West  the  steel  industry  is  even  less  developed 
than  in  the  South,  there  being  on  June  3oth,  1890,  but  one 
steel  works  in  California  and  one  in  Colorado.  Their  total 
product  for  that  year  (census  year)  was  24,856  tons. 

The  prospects  for  the  future  of  the  American  steel  industry 
are  most  encouraging.  The  United  States  is  now  foremost 
in  the  world  in  the  manufacture  of  Bessemer  steel,  and  with 
the  development  of  our  ship  building  interests  the  day  is 
not  far  off  when  we  shall  also  surpass  Great  Britain  in  the 
manufacture  of  open  hearth  steel. 

WILMER  HERSHEY  RIGHTER. 


14  The  Recent  Development  of 

CHAPTER  II. 
THE  UNITED  STATES  MERCHANT  MARINE. 

No  one  industry  is  of  more  importance  in  determining  the 
condition  of  a  country  than  is  its  national  commerce.  As  a 
possible  source  of  national  wealth  and  power  to  a  country 
this  branch  of  trade  is  of  vital  importance.  Its  prosperity 
directly  affects  the  national  prosperity  and  its  decay  may 
be  said  to  reflect  national  decay. 

We  will  give  a  somewhat  detailed  account  of  the  events 
and  changes  since  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  which  either  favorably  or  adversely  influenced 
the  growth  of  the  United  States  merchant  marine,  and  the 
manner  in  which  it  was  fostered  and  then  allowed  to  decline. 

One  of  the  first  acts  of  the  first  Congress  of  the  United 
States  was  to  pass  a  discriminating  tonnage  duty  and  a  navi- 
gation act,  favoring  the  merchants  of  the  United  States.  In 
addition  to  these  acts  the  war  between  France  and  Great 
Britain  worked  great  good  to  our  marine.  In  1 789  our  total  ton- 
nage in  the  foreign  trade  was  123,893  tons,  and  the  following 
year,  owing  to  the  above-mentioned  favorable  circumstances, 
it  increased  three-fold,  the  largest  growth  it  has  had  since  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution.  But  during  the  succeeding  three 
or  four  years,  owing  to  the  Algerine  piracies  and  war,  our  com- 
merce remained  nearly  stationary  until  an  act  providing  for  a 
discriminating  duty  of  10  per  cent,  on  goods  in  foreign  ship 
gave  it  a  decided  impetus,  raising  our  total  to  575,000  tons. 

The  navigation  laws,  passed  soon  after  the  adoption  of 
the  Constitution,  were  for  the  most  part  in  retaliation  against 
Great  Britain  and  her  navigation  laws.  *  By  them  we  con- 
fined the  benefits  of  registry  for  the  foreign  trade  and  enroll- 
ment for  the  coast  trade  of  the  United  States  to  vessels  of 
American  origin.  These  laws  provided,  among  other  things, 
that  no  "  vessel  of  the  United  States  "  could  be  held  by  an 
American  citizen  residing  abroad,  with  the  exception  of  a 
Consul  or  partner  in  a  business  house  in  the  United  States. 


American  Industries.  15 

The  right  of  American  citizens  to  own  foreign  built  vessels 
is  recognized  by  the  law,  but  the  position  of  these  ships  is 
an  anomalous  one.  They  are  entitled  to  carry  the  American 
flag  and  are  recognized  as  American  property  for  the  pur- 
pose of  neutrality,  but  they  are  excluded  from  importing 
goods  into  thejUnited  States,  although  they  have  the  right 
to  export,  and  are  under  such  serious  disabilities  in  the  coast- 
ing trade  as  to  practically  exclude  them. 

But  our  commerce  was  not  to  be  allowed  to  peaceably 
thrive,  for  in  1796  the  French  began  the  spoliation  of  our 
marine  and  a  war  followed,  which  continued  until  nearly  1800, 
During  this  time  the  prospect  was  too  discouraging  and  the 
hazards  too  great  for  any  merchant  to  invest  in  ships.  Peace 
with  France  brought  on  a  slight  reaction,  but  the  war  with 
the  Barbary  States,  in  1802,  reduced  our  fleet  to  where  it  had 
been  in  1795.  In  1804  the  tariff  was  raised  to  2^  per  cent., 
but  this  slight  advantage  was  offset  by  the  impressment  of 
our  seamen  by  the  British,  which  now  began.  However, 
despite  these  difficulties  our  commerce  increased  until  in  1808 
our  tonnage  was  810,090  tons,  but  the  embargo  and  non- 
intercourse  acts  in  the  following  years  reduced  it  100,000 
tons.  The  years  1809  an(i  l8l°  brought  a  large  and  steady  in- 
crease, and  our  fleet  in  the  foreign  trade  reached  a  point 
which  it  was  not  again  to  attain  until  1847. 

The  war  with  England  in  1812  brought  evil  and  disastrous 
results.  Our  commerce  became  restricted,  our  harbors  block- 
aded and  our  banks  forced  to  suspend  specie  payments.  The 
result  was  plainly  shown  by  a  reduction  in  our  commerce 
from  980,000  to  670,000  tons  in  the  period  of  two  years. 
England,  even  though  not  successful  from  a  military  point 
of  view,  yet  in  the  injury  done  our  commerce,  and  the  im- 
petus given  her  own,  reaped  untold  advantages.  The 
first  years  following  this  war  saw  a  steady  increase  for  the 
United  States,  but  an  act  for  "free-shipping,"  suspending 
differential  duties,  in  1817,  reduced  our  fleet  to  what  it  had 
been  in  1795.  From  that  time  till  1840  the  amount  of  our 
tonnage  kept  nearly  stationary,  never  exceeding  700,000  or 
getting  below  500,000.  Three  acts  for,  free-shipping  were 


1 6  The  Recent  Development  of 

passed  during  this  period,  and  each  was  followed  by  a  falling 
off  of  our  tonnage  to  the  extent  of  two  or  three  hundred 
thousand  tons. 

In  1847  our  tonnage  reached  a  little  over  a  million,  de- 
spite a  slight  set-back  given  by  our  war  with  Mexico.  It 
was  during  this  year  that  our  first  American  trans-Atlantic 
steamers  were  built  and  afterwards  subsidized.  From  1847 
to  1855  our  tonnage  increased  on  an  average  of  200,000  tons 
a  year,  which  makes  them  the  most  prosperous  years  our 
commerce  has  experienced.  The  change  from  wood  to  iron, 
which  began  in  the  latter  part  of  this  period,  completely 
revolutionized  the  shipping  of  the  world,  and  resulted  in 
spoiling  the  usefulness  of  fine  clippers  and  sailing  vessels. 

Such  a  favorable  impetus  was  given  to  our  shipping  by  the 
emigration  to  California  after  the  gold  discovery  that  in  1855 
it  had  reached  2,348,358  tons,  at  which  figure  it  remained 
about  stationary  until  the  civil  war.  In  1858  the  steamship 
subsidies  were  withdrawn,  which  resulted  very  disastrously 
to  our  lines  of  trans-Atlantic  steamers.  The  period  just  be- 
fore the  civil  war  marks  the  zenith  of  our  shipping  industry. 
2,494,000  tons  is  the  highest  point  which  our  shipping  in  the 
foreign  trade  has  ever  reached,  and  from  that  period  (1861) 
until  the  present  day  the  history  is  of  a  disgraceful  decline. 

With  the  Southern  ports  closed,  specie  payment  suspended 
and  the  Confederate  cruisers  destroying  our  merchantmen, 
little  inducement  could  be  offered  to  venture  in  any  shipping 
enterprise.  The  famous  Confederate  privateer,  "The  Ala- 
bama," and  others,  were  scouring  the  seas  and  committing 
depredations  on  our  merchant  marine,  which  were  afterwards 
estimated  at  $15,000,000  by  the  Geneva  conference,  so  that 
the  five  years  from  1861  to  1866  saw  our  commerce  reduced 
by  a  million  tons.  It  is  from  this  blow  that  the  merchant 
marine  of  the  United  States  has  never  recovered,  and  it  will 
require  some  bold  and  active  measures  on  the  part  of  our 
National  Government  to  make  it  do  so.  What  measures  the 
United  States  should  adopt  for  this  purpose  will  be  consid- 
ered elsewhere.  Our  tonnage  in  the  year  1890  was  928,062 
in  the  foreign  trade,  or  one-quarter  of  what  it  was  in  the  year 


American  Industries.  17 

preceding  the  civil  war.  This  shameful  position  has  been 
reached  by  a  steady  decline  in  the  last  few  years. 

The  enormous  increase  in  the  passenger  traffic  in  this 
century  has  led  to  the  establishment  of  many  steamship  lines 
under  foreign  flags.  This  great  branch  of  industry  began 
to  assume  large  proportions  when  the  era  of  iron  steamships 
began.  It  was  back  in  the  neighborhood  of  r854  that  the 
character  of  ocean  shipping  underwent  a  most  radical  and 
all-important  change.  Iron  steamships  appeared  on  the 
Atlantic  at  that  time,  and  the  wooden  ship  owners  met  a 
competition  which  has  since  nearly  driven  them  from  off  the 
seas.  Iron  now  took  the  place  of  wood,  and  steam  that  of 
sail,  so  that  the  mariner  was  no  longer  dependent  on  the 
variable  elements  for  the  safety  and  speed  of  his  trip;  and 
the  "stormy  winds,"  which  had  for  so  many  centuries  ter- 
rorized the  venturesome  sailor,  were  now  triumphed  over  by 
human  agency. 

The  first  steamship  entered  New  York  Harbor  from  Europe 
on  April  23,  1838,  but  it  was  not  till  some  years  later  that 
the  feasibility  of  abandoning  the  fine  sailing  packets  and 
clippers  for  steamers  was  demonstrated.  There  were  several 
successful  sailing  lines  in  operation  between  America  and 
Europe  at  that  time,  among  the  most  important  of  which 
were  William  &  Guion' s  Old  Black  Star  Line  (afterwards 
merged  into  the  Guion  Line  of  Steamships);  Guion  &  Co.'s 
Black  Star  Line;  C.  H.  Marshall  &  Co.'s  Black  Ball  Line; 
Cope's  Philadelphia  Line;  and  Tapscott's  Line.  For  ten 
years  after  the  first  steam  line  a  prejudice  against  steam  ex- 
isted, especially  among  the  ignorant  classes,  and  the  first 
steamers  transported  only  cabin  passengers.  The  rates  were 
£$o  for  first  cabin  and  £8  for  second,  while  the  appoint- 
ments of  the  cabins  and  state-rooms  were  very  meagre  com- 
pared with  the  great  steamships  of  to-day. 

No  regular  lines  of  steamers  were  successfully  established 
until  1840,  when  the  British  and  North  American  Royal 
Mail  Steam  Packet  Company  was  organized.  Samuel  Cunard, 
of  Halifax,  was  the  chief  promoter  in  the  concern  and  his 
name  was  soon  popularly  used  to  designate  the  line.  £60,000 


1 8  The  Recent  Development  of 

annually  was  given  the  company  by  the  British  Government. 
for  carrying  the  mails.  In  this  act  England  again  showed 
her  policy  of  government  assistance,  without  which  no  line 
can  now  exist  and  successfully  compete  with  the  ship-owners 
of  other  nations. 

The  Cunarders  had  a  monopoly  until  1847  when  the 
Ocean  Steam  Navigation  Company  was  established;  which 
undertook  to  carry  the  mails  between  New  York  and  Bremen 
with  a  Government  bounty  of  $200,000  a  year.  Then 
came  the  New  York  and  Havre  Steam  Navigation  Company 
to  which  the  Government  agreed  to  pay  $150,000  annually. 
The  Collins  Line  was  established  in  1849,  receiving  $858,000- 
yearly  for  carrying  the  mails.  This  was  an  American  enter- 
prise but  at  the  end  of  six  years  it  was  bankrupt  upon  the 
Government  withdrawing  its  subsidy. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  a  new  candidate  for  ocean  traffic 
appeared,  bringing  with  it  two  innovations  of  the  greatest 
importance  to  all  travelers.  This  was  the  Liverpool,  New 
York  and  Philadelphia  Steamship  Company,  better  known, 
even  in  its  own  offices,  as  the  Inman  Line.  It  wras  the 
original  plan  of  this  company  to  establish  a  line  between 
Liverpool  and  Philadelphia  and  for  several  years,  beginning 
in  1850,  no  calls  were  made  at  New  York.  The  Inman 
Company  was  successful  in  securing  a  contract  from  the 
British  and  Canadian  Governments  for  carrying  the  mails 
via  Halifax  and  was  the  successor  to  the  Cunard  Line  on 
that  route.  The  company  then  settled  down  to  carrying 
passengers,  freight  and  mail  between  Liverpool  and  New- 
York,  and  the  vessels  calling  at  Queenstown  on  every  trip. 
The  two  innovations  introduced  by  the  Inman  Line  soon  be- 
came prominent  features  of  ocean  business;  one  was  the  use 
of  the  screw-propeller,  and  the  other  was  the  carrying  of 
steerage,  or  third-class  passengers.  Previous  to  1850  all 
steamships  built  for  trans- Atlantic  voyages  had  been  side- 
wheelers;  the  City  of  Glasgow,  built  on  the  Clyde  for  the 
Inman  Line,  was  the  first  trans-Atlantic  screw  steamship. 
The  .effect  of  this  invention  was  the  extermination  of  the 
clipper  ship  as  a  passenger  carrier. 


American  Industries.  19 

The  steady  increase  of  the  passenger  traffic  between  the  two- 
Continents  led  to  the  organization  of  many  other  companies 
that  tried  to  find  a  share  in  the  carrying  business  and  from 
1850  to  1860  many  lines  were  established  which  are  in  exist- 
ence to-day.  This  increase  has  been  largely  due  to  great 
mechanical  inventions,  and  the  better  facilities  which  have 
been  introduced.  Although  the  innovations  of  the  Inman 
Line  were  generally  adopted  it  was  not  until  after  1870  that 
the  side- wheeler  disappeared  from  the  ocean.  The  life  of  an> 
iron  steamship  is  said  to  be  unlimited,  but  time  enough  has 
not  elapsed  since  the  first  iron  ships  were  floated  to  determine 
how  long  they  will  naturally  last  under  good  usage.  In  1870- 
the  Oceanic  Steam  Navigation  Company,  or  the  White  Star 
Line,  as  it  is  universally  known,  entered  upon  its  career.  The 
inauguration  of  this  company  marked  the  beginning  of  what 
may  be  called  the  second  epoch  in  Trans- Atlantic  travel. 

With  the  first  voyage  of  the  Inman  Liner,  the  City  of  New 
York,  a  third  epoch  began.  This  last  period,  into  which  we 
have  hardly  entered,  is  distinguished  by  the  twin  screw  steam- 
ship. In  addition  to  having  two  complete  sets  of  engines,, 
these  vessels  are  so  sub-divided  as  to  be  unsinkable,  and  are 
fitted  up  throughout  in  a  most  luxurious  manner.  There  are 
now  seven  great  vessels  of  the  twin  screw  class  in  the  passen- 
ger service  between  European  ports  and  New  York.  The  great 
increase  in  the  passenger  trade  in  recent  years  is  clearly  shown 
by  the  increase  in  the  number  of  cabin  passengers  arriving 
in  New  York  from  51,229  in  1881  to  99,189  in  1890. 

These  various  steamship  lines  belong  to  companies  of 
several  nationalities,  but  they  all  exist  under  the  aid  of  their 
home  government,  either  in  the  form  of  an  admiralty  sub- 
vention, or  a  postal  subsidy.  In  recent  years,  we  have  begun 
to  realize  that  trie  number  of  steamships  under  the  American 
flag  is  shamefully  small  and  many  measures  have  been  pro- 
posed in  Congress  with  the  object  of  reviving  our  marine. 
The  remedies  suggested  are,  first,  to  pay  the  lines  on  mail 
routes  a  liberal  compensation  for  carrying  the  mails  and,, 
second,  a  bounty  per  ton  for  every  mile  sailed  by  vessels  car- 
rying cargoes  to  and  from  the  United  States. 


20  The  Recent  Development  of 

These  measures  have  been  steadily  proposed  in  Congress 
for  several  years,  but  it  remained  for  the  last  Congress  to  pass 
the  first  of  them.  This  act  empowers  the  Postmaster  General 
to  contract  with  steamship  lines  for  carrying  the  mails,  and 
although  it  is  expected  that  it  will  have  a  beneficial  effect 
in  establishing  several  steamship  mail  routes,  yet  it  is  too 
soon  to  predict  whether  this  desirable  end  will  be  attained. 

This  great  increase  in  the  passenger  traffic, which  we  have 
endeavored  to  describe,  is  a  large  source  of  revenue  to  nearly 
all  the  countries  on  the  Atlantic,  except  the  United  States, 
and  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that  some  effort  should 
be  made  to  have  it  carried  by  American  owned  and  built 
ships  carrying  the  American  flag.  To  secure  this,  the  policy 
of  the  United  States  Government  must  be  broadened  and 
liberal  subsidies  bestowed. 

The  most  important  question  in  this  direction  is,  "What 
do  other  nations  do  to  assist  or  encourage  their  shipping?" 
Sixty-five  per  cent,  of  the  carrying  trade  of  the  whole  world 
may  be  said  to  be  in  the  hands  of  the  United  Kingdom  of 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  of  America.  Great 
Britain  ranks  in  shipping  as  we  do  in  railroads,  having  a 
carrying  power  nearly  equal  to  all  the  rest  of  the  world. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  present  century  the  carrying 
power  of  the  merchant  marine  of  the  United  Kingdom  of 
Great  Britain  was  2,211,000  tons,  and  to-day  it  exceeds 
18,000,000  tons,  having  grown  eight-fold  since  1810.  Nearly 
200,000  seamen  are  employed  in  this  great  fleet,  and  the  Brit 
ish  flag  may  be  found  in  the  ports  of  every  country  throughout 
the  world.  Her  carrying  power  is  42  per  cent,  of  the  aggre- 
gate carrying  power  of  the  world.  What  an  unpleasant  con- 
trast this  is  to  the  condition  of  affairs  in  the  United  States 
which  possesses  such  an  immense  number  of  the  safest  and 
most  beautiful  harbors  in  the  world.  With  all  the  natural 
advantages  which  she  possesses  the  United  States  has  but  a 
little  more  than  one-fifth  of  the  world's  carrying  power,  in- 
cluding coastwise  tonnage,  which  is  less  than  one-half  as 
great  as  that  of  Great  Britain,  while  of  foreign  shipping 
the  United  States  has  less  than  10  per  cent,  of  the  total. 


American  Industries. 


21 


The  position  of  the  United  States  as  a  maritime  power  is 
clearly  indicated  by  the  following  table  which  shows  the 
shipping  of  all  flags,  the  nominal  tonnage  and  the  carrying 
power  of  all  the  nations  of  the  world: 


Flag. 

Nominal  tonnage. 

Carrying  power. 

Sailing. 

Steam. 

Total. 

Tons.        Ratio. 

United  Kingdom  . 
France 

3,688,000- 
642,000 
966,000 
481,000 
248,000 
922,000 

3,066,000 
2,856,000 
1,233,000 

201,000 

427,000 
151,000 
240,000 

3,004,000 
278,000 
216,000 
73,000 
62,000 
77,000 

523,000 

1,211,000 

78,000 
77,000 
28,000 
41,000 
58,000 

6,692,000 
920,000 
1,182,000 
554,000 
310,000 
999,000 

3,590,000 
4,067,000 
1,311,000 
278,000 
455,000 
192,000 
298,000 

18,110,000 
2,032.000 
2,046,000 
846,000 
1558,000 
1,307,000 

5,680,000 
8,910,000 
1,623,000 
586,000 
567,000 
356,000 
530,000 

42.1 
4-7 
4-7 

2.O 

!-3 

3-o 

13-2 
206 
3-8 
i-3 
i-3 
0.8 

1.2 

Germany  
Russia  
Austria 

Italy  
Other  European 
Countries  .... 
United  States  .    .    . 
Canada  

Australia 

India,  Cape,  &c.  . 
Japan  
Brazil,  Chili,  &c.  . 

Total  

15,121,000 

5,726,000 

20,847,000  43,151,000       100.0 

In  addition  to  this  another  contrast  must  be  noted.  At 
the  present  day,  Great  Britain  in  the  amount  of  ship  build- 
ing which  she  does,  is  even  more  in  advance  of  us  than 
in  her  carrying  power  and  earnings  of  shipping;  yet  in  1850 
the  tonnage  built  in  the  United  States  was  more  than  twice 
that  of  England,  and  even  as  late  as  1860  the  average  annual 
output  of  the  United  States  was  greater  than  in*  England, 
but  in  1882,  the  British  exceeded  ours  four  fold. 

It  is  in  the  contrast  with  another  country  that  our  position 
is  best  seen,  and  when  we  find  ourselves  being  left  far  in  the 
rear  by  a  particular  country,  it  may  be  granted  that  the 
policy  of  that  country  is  a  successful  one  and  one  to  be 
imitated.  The  situation  to-day  shows  British  shipping 
triumphant  on  every  sea,  and  ours  successful  nowhere  ex- 
cept along  the  coast  where,  owing  to  a  wise  protection,  it  is 
impossible  to  compete  with  us.  What  is  it  then,  that  has 
put  England  in  this  enviable  position?  To  this  question 
there  can  be  but  one  answer,  her  success  is  directly  trace- 


22  The  Recent  Development  of 

able  to  the  liberal  policy  of  her  government.  To  her  foster- 
ing care  of  this  industry  England  now  owes,  to  a  large 
degree,  her  present  position  as  an  all-powerful  nation.  It 
is  worthy  of  mention,  that  since  the  year  1837  England 
has  paid  $222,500,000  in  mail  compensation  and  bounties. 

If  we  turn  to  France  for  investigation  we  find  that  for 
years  has  she  aided  her  ship-owners  in  many  ways  and  only 
recently  finding  it  impossible  to  obtain  a  great  merchant 
marine  by  purchasing  it  from  England  she  passed  a  law, 
offering  a  bounty  for  every  steamship  built  in  France,  an 
encouragement  said  to  be  equal  to  $7,000,000  a  year,  paid 
out  of  her  national  treasury.  A  three-thousand  ton  steamer 
running  between  New  York  and  Havre  is  estimated  to  get 
$54,000  the  first  year  of  running  and  $52,000  the  second. 
Even  Italy  spends  $3,000,000  a  year  to  subsidies  and  postal 
fees,  while  a  perfect  howl  was  raised  in  the  United  States 
over  the  Shipping  Bill  recently  defeated  in  Congress,  which 
was  to  spend  only  on  an  average  of  $4,718,000  a  year  for 
ten  years  in  establishing  our  merchant  marine. 

The  position  of  the  United  States  in  this  matter  is  clearly 
seen  in  the  following  table  of  the  amounts  paid  as  subsidies 
by  the  various  nations: 

France $  6,477,000 

Great  Britain 3,750,000 

Italy 3,228,000 

Brazil 1,704,000 

The  Australasian  Colonies 1,500,000 

Austria " 1,030,000 

Russia  .    .   : 1,650,000 

Sweden  and  Norway , 175,000 

Mexico 806,000 

Canada 200,000 

Central  America 100,000 

Japan 500,000 

Germany 69,000 

Spain 1,000,000 

Belgium  .    .' 250,000 

Holland 363,000 

Hungary 75>°°° 

Total $22,877,000 

The  United  States  to  American  ships  (postage*) 43>°°° 

Total  with  United  States  postage  .    . $22,920,000 

*The  United  States  to  foreign  ships  $230,000. 


American  Industries*  23 

Plain  as  is  the  fallacy  of  the  policy  of  the  United  States, 
yet  the  most  powerful  argument  showing  the  error  of  her 
present  short-sighted  method  is  to  be  found  in  the  condition 
of  affairs  at  home  and  not  abroad.  In  1882,  our  coastwise 
trade  was  over  twice  as  great  as  our  foreign  trade,  while  the 
former  was  increasing  and  the  latter  declining.  At  various 
places  the  trade  lines  of  commerce  must  come  together,  as 
for  instance,  the  Sault  Saint  Marie  Canal,  and  here  some 
estimates  of  the  amount  have  been  obtained.  The  tonnage 
which  went  through  that  canal  in  1890  was  1,500,000  tons 
greater  than  that  which  passed  through  the  Suez  Canal  in 
the  same  year.  The  whole  of  our  internal  commerce  is  said 
upon  the  best  of  authority  to  amount  to  $25,000,000,000  a 
year. 

Of  the  city  of  Chicago,  it  is  said  that  last  year,  the  ton- 
nage which  entered  and  cleared  there  was  considerably 
greater  than  the  tonnage  at  either  New  York,  London  or 
Liverpool.  Our  tonnage  on  Western  rivers  is  294,446  tons, 
while  the  shipping  on  the  Pacific  coast  is  about  twice  as  great. 

In  our  coastwise  shipping  our  increase  has  been  steady 
and  strong,  showing  plainly  what  could  be  done  with  our 
foreign  shipping.  But  this  trade  is  prosperous  owing  to 
the  fact  that  all  foreign  competition  is  excluded.  Only 
vessels  of  American  build  can  trade  between  two  ports  of 
the  United  States,  and  if  it  were  not  for  this  protection  the 
American  ship-owners  would  be  unable  to  successfully  com- 
pete with  foreigners  when  the  latter  can  build  and  man  their 
vessels  so  much  more  cheaply.  The  average  difference  in  the 
wages  of  sailors,  firemen,  etc.,  between  Liverpool  and  Phila- 
delphia, is  nearly  33  per  cent.  This  difference  was  clearly 
shown  by  Senator  William  P.  Frye,  in  his  speech  on  the 
Shipping  Bill  before  the  Senate  on  July  3d,  1890,  where  he 
compared  a  Spanish  and  an  American  ship  with  regard  to 
the  wages  paid  their  employees  or  crew  and  found  that  the 
total  difference  per  month  was  $10,698.95  in  favor  of  the 
Spanish  ship.  With  our  foreign  commerce  under  this  disad- 
vantage how  could  it  be  expected  that  they  could  compete 
•  other  nations  of  the  world  ? 


24  The  Recent  Development  of 

What  more  powerful  and  self-evident  argument  for  govern- 
ment assistance  to  our  foreign  trade  could  possibly  be  had  than 
the  fact  that  our  domestic  shipping  thrives  solely  through  the 
protection  of  the  government  ?  Our  coastwise  trade  we  see 
thrifty  and  prosperous  under  national  care,  while  our  foreign 
trade  we  see  ruined  and  sinking  under  national  neglect. 
Shall  the  United  States  take  the  position  in  the  commercial 
world,  as  it  has  done  in  the  mining,  the  manufacturing  and 
the  railroad  worlds  ;  or  shall  this  great  country,  to  avoid  a 
comparatively  small  temporary  expense,  sink  back  to  a  posi- 
tion inferior  to  that  which  she  held  when  our  forefathers  ab- 
solved their  connection  with  the  mother  country,  and  declared 
the  United  States  to  be  a  free  and  independent  nation  ? 

LLOYD  CARPENTER  GRISCOM. 


American  Industries.  25 


CHAPTER  III. 
THE  CARPET  INDUSTRY. 

Carpet,  as  is  well  known,  originated  in  the  East,  but  not 
"by  any  means  carpets  as  we  use  the  term.  The  Oriental 
•carpet  is  now,  and  always  has  been,  merely  a  rug,  to  be 
•spread  upon  the  floor  or  taken  up  as  necessity  requires. 
From  the  East  the  manufacture  was  at  an  early  date  intro- 
•duced  into  Europe  and  from  thence  came  to  America  about 
the  time  of  the  Revolution;  but  it  was  not  till  the  middle  of 
the  present  century  that  any  great  advance  was  made  in  the 
industry.  Before  the  invention  and  perfection  of  the  im- 
proved looms,  about  1850-60,  carpet  patterns  were  very 
-simple,  or  if  manufactured  with  any  complication  of  figure, 
were  very  expensive.  At  the  ancient  royal  establishment 
of  the  Gobelins  in  Paris,  most  beautiful  fabrics  were  pro- 
duced, some  of  which  required  from  five  to  ten  years  to 
make  and  were  valued  at  from  100,000  to  2,000,000  francs. 

In  the  United  States  "  home-made  "  rag  carpets  were  used 
to  some  extent  at  a  very  early  period  and  in  1760,  the  New 
York  papers  were  advertising  Scotch  carpets  for  sale,  but 
before  the  present  century  the  sanded  floor  was  in  most  gen- 
eral use.  The  first  carpet  establishment  of  which  we  have 
any  record  was  owned  by  William  Peter  Sprague  and  was 
making  Axminster  carpets  in  Philadelphia  in  1791.  In  this 
year  also  we  first  hear  of  a  protective  tariff  for  carpets,  in 
the  report  of  Alexander  Hamilton  who  proposed  an  increase 
in  the  duty  from  5  to  7}^  per  cent.  "  for  the  further  protec- 
tion of  this  branch  of  home  industry." 

Several  years  later  John  Dorsey  started  another  factory  at 
Philadelphia,  but  the  growth  of  the  industry  was  slow  in  the 
•extreme.  The  census  of  1810  returned  as  the  total  output  of 
the  country  9,984  yards,  nearly  all  of  which  was  made  at 
Philadelphia.  This  early  planting  of  the  industry  in  the 
'Quaker  City  was  in  a  large  degree  due  to  the  character  of 


26  The  Recent  Development  of 

the  immigration.  They  brought  with  them  the  idea  of 
weaving,  and  their  primitive  hand-looms  could  easily  be 
adapted  to  the  production  of  various  kinds  of  fabrics,  and 
finding  a  considerable  demand  for  carpets,  they  altered  their 
clumsy  machines  to  carpet  looms.  Several  mills  which  have 
since  become  among  the  largest  in  the  country  were  started 
from  1825  to  1835.  The  Tariffville  mills  at  Tariifville,  Con- 
necticut, now  the  Hartford  Carpet  Co.,  the  Lowell  Manu- 
facturing Co.,  of  Lowell,  Mass.,  now  one  of  the  largest 
producers  of  Wilton  and  Body  Brussels;  McCallum's  factory 
at  Philadelphia,  now  McCallum  &  Sloan,  producing  Wilton, 
Body  Brussels,  Ingrains,  and  Alexander  Smith,  at  Yonkers, 
N.  Y.,  now  Alexander  Smith  &  Sons  Carpet  Co.,  the  largest 
manufacturers  of  Moquette  and  Tapestries. 

By  1835  the  manufacture  of  carpets  had  become  one  of  our 
important  industries,  and  our  productions  compared  favor- 
ably with  the  foreign  article.  Nearly  every  description  of 
carpeting  made  in  Europe  was  at  this  time  produced  in  the 
United  States,  but  compared  with  modern  figures  the  output 
was  small,  being  only  about  1,147,500  yards,  over  85  per 
cent,  of  which  was  ingrain.  The  industry  had  not  as  yet 
received  that  impetus  which  was  destined  to  be  given  to  it 
by  the  great  inventions  of  the  next  and  succeeding  decades. 
The  old-fashioned  hand- looms  were  used,  producing  from 
seven  to  eight  yards  per  day  of  inferior  carpet,  and  such  a 
thing  as  a  modern  factory  was  unknown.  The  weavers 
worked  in  their  shops  back  of  the  houses,  received  good 
wages,  and  were  a  very  respectable  class  of  men.  In  1834 
there  were  reported  about  twenty  factories,  with  a  little  over 
500  looms,  425  of  them  being  ingrains.  The  average  impor- 
tation of  all  kinds  from  the  year  1828  to  1832  was  536,296 
yards,  about  one-half  the  domestic  product.  The  larger 
consumption  of  ingrains  was  doubtless  due  to  their  greater 
cheapness.  They  are  so  woven  that  the  color  of  the  design 
appears  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  carpet  as  the  ground, 
making  it  reversible,  which  renders  it  a  very  serviceable,  as 
well  as  a  cheap  carpet.  Its  great  rival  at  present  is  tapestry 
brussels,  manufactured  in  England  as  early  as  1842  ;  E. 


American  Industries.  27 

S.  Higgins  &  Co.,  of  New  York,  making  the  first  successful 
attempt  in  this  country. 

The  invention  and  introduction  of  the  power  loom  makes 
from  1845  to  1855  one  of  the  most  eventful  decades  in  the 
history  of  the  carpet  industry.  The  problem  of  making  a 
power  loom  which  should  automatically  perform  so  difficult 
a  task  as  the  weaving  of  a  two-ply  web  so  as  to  produce  any 
required  pattern  had  in  England  been  abandoned  as  insolv- 
able.  Such  an  intricate  machine  as  a  Brussels  and  Wilton 
power  loom  was  not  thought  of  even  in  their  wildest  dreams, 
and  the  solution  of  these  problems  was  mainly  if  not  entirely 
the  product  of  American  genius.  The  first  power  loom,  one 
for  the  manufacture  of  ingrain,  made  in  1834,  was  unsuc- 
cessful and  sold  as  useless  to  Mr.  Bigelow,  to  whom  the 
carpet  industry  in  America  is  greatly  indebted.  From  this 
apparently  useless  machine  he  brought  out  in  1839  an  in- 
grain loom  which  was  so  improved  by  1845  that  it  produced 
from  25  to  27  yards  per  day.  These  looms  were  used  mainly  in 
New  England  as  automatic  power  was  not  introduced  to  any 
great  extent  in  Philadelphia  till  1865-1870.  In  1864  John 
Braun,  a  German,  invented  a  very  successful  loom  in  this  city, 
but  the  phenomenal  growth  of  the  industry  here  was  not  till 
after  the  introduction  of  the  costly  Murkland  loom,  about 
1870,  producing  about  thirty  yards  of  the  better  quality  in- 
grains. Many  of  these  looms,  costing  at  first  about  $i  ,000,  are 
still  in  use  in  Philadelphia,  but  the  newer  esthblishments  have 
taken  up  the  more  speedy  and  less  expensive  Crompton  and 
Knowles  looms,  both  of  which  were  brought  out  in  1886. 
These  cost  only  about  $450  and  produce  on  the  average 
about  fifty  yards  per  day.  The  invention  of  the  Murkland 
loom,  which  introduced  shading  into  the  patterns,  enabled 
the  weaving  of  designs  having  a  more  pleasing  effect  than 
those  formerly  made,  though  it  is  not  till  within  the  past  ten 
years  that  we  have  obtained  any  remarkable  results  in  our 
weaves  and  designs.  During  this  time  a  new  branch  of  the 
ingrain  manufacture,  borrowed  from  England,  has  grown  up 
in  Philadelphia,  namely,  the  weaving  of  ''art  squares;" 
they  are  simply  "ingrain  druggets,"  frequently  three  yards 


28  The  Recent  Development  of 

in  width,  and  embodying  striking  conceits  in  weaving,  color 
and  design.  The  looms  will  produce  100  yards  per  week. 

The  invention  of  the  Brussels  power  loom  we  also  owe  to 
Mr.  Bigelow.  Two  years  previous  to  his  ingrain  loom  in 
1837  he  had  invented  a  coach-lace  loom,  which  he  so  modi- 
fied as  to  adopt  it  for  weaving  wider  goods,  and  in  1840 
brought  out  his  perfected  Brussels  power  loom.  The  main 
difficulties  to  be  overcome  in  the  invention  of  this  loom  were 
the  bringing  to  the  surface  of  the  proper  colors  for  the  pattern 
by  means  of  the  Jaquard  cards,  and  the  automatic  withdrawal 
and  replacing  of  the  wires  over  which  the  warp  must  be 
woven  in  order  to  produce  the  ribbed  appearance  of  the  carpet. 
The  old  hand  loom,  aside  from  being  a  very  slow  machine, 
(producing  ^mly  about  ten  yards  per  day)  could  not,  even 
with  the  most  skillful  workman,  give  that  even  and  smooth 
surface  and  symmetry  of  figure  so  necessary  to  a  good  body 
Brussels  carpet.  The  power  loom  with  its  recent  improve- 
ments produces  a  more  perfect  article  and  does  it  much  more 
rapidly,  weaving  from  50  to  60  yards  per  day.  Body-Brussels 
was  first  made  in  the  United  States  as  early  as  1815,  but  the 
manufacture  was  of  little  importance  till  after  the  introduction 
of  the  power  loom,  about  1847,  when  it  grew  very  rapidly ,  and 
now  the  total  output  is  over  17,000,000  yards,  of  which  Massa- 
chusetts produces  7^  millions  and  Philadelphia  over  6^. 

In  Philadelphia  this  branch  of  the  manufacture  is  of  recent 
growth,  as  will  be  seen  when  it  is  remembered  that  in  1870 
there  was  not  a  body  Brussels  loom  in  successful  operation 
within  the  State  of  Pennsylvania.  New  England  long  re- 
tained the  monopoly,  but  at  present  the  1122  body  Brussels 
and  Wilton  power  looms  now  operating  in  the  United  States 
are  distributed  mainly  as  follows :  Massachusetts,  454, 
Philadelphia,  352,  and  Connecticut  107.  The  Bigelow  loom 
is  most  popular  in  New  England,  but  an  English  loom,  the 
Crossley,  with  a  capacity  of  fifty-three  yards  per  day,  is  used 
in  nearly  all  the  large  mills  in  Philadelphia.  Brussels 
weavers  are  among  our  most  industrious  and  thrifty  carpet 
laborers,  many  of  them  possessing  a  superior  intelligence 
and  a  definite  knowledge  of  what  is  requisite  in  the  technique 


American  Industries.  29 

and   color   treatment   of  a   fine  floor   fabric.     Their  wages 
average  from  sixteen  to  eighteen  dollars  per  week. 

Wilton  carpet  is  similar  to  Brussels,  except  that  it  is  much 
heavier,  and  the  loops  are  cut,  giving  it  a  plush  surface.  It 
is  the  most  desirable  of  American  carpets,  and  is  very  popular 
among  the  richer  classes,  being  the  chief  competitor  of 
Axminster.  In  1882  its  production  was  about  600,000  yards, 
but  this  output  has  of  late  years  been  considerably  increased. 
A  cheaper  pile  carpet  of  American  origin  is  the  Moquette, 
first  manufactured  by  the  Alexander  Smith  &  Sons  Carpet 
Co.,  of  Yonkers,  N.  Y.  It  is  not  so  durable  as  the  Wilton,  but 
is  capable  of  wonderful  color  treatment,  and  having  a  longer 
nap,  is  much  softer.  The  long  nap,  however,  permits  matting 
down  more  than  the  short  nap  of  the  Wilton,  but  it  is  never- 
theless a  very  popular  carpet,  and  is  rapidly  taking  the  place 
of  the  old  imported  Axminster  which  has  long  been  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  average  housekeeper.  There  is  no  mention 
made  of  it  in  the  census  of  1880,  but  at  present  there  are 
from  425  to  450  looms  operating  on  its  production. 

Tapestry  Brussels,  mentioned  above  as  the  rival  of  ingrains, 
is  a  very  durable  fabric  considering  its  cost,  and  being 
woven  over  wires  has  the  same  ribbed  appearance  as  body- 
Brussels  but  is  much  lighter,  carrying  only  about  200  warp 
threads  while  the  latter  has  1200.  The  body-Brussels  re- 
quires a  separate  set  of  warp  threads  for  each  color  and  is 
thus  limited  to  five  or  six,  while  in  the  tapestry  the  design 
is  printed  on  the  threads  before  they  are  put  into  the  loom. 
Great  skill  is  required  both  in  the  printing  and  in  the  weav- 
ing, but  the  manufacturer  is  enabled  to  use  an  unlimited 
number  of  colors  and  produce  a  beautiful  carpet.  An  ingrain 
carpet  of  medium  grade  retails  at  about  fifty  cents,  and  a 
three-ply  ingrain  and  a  tapestry  Brussels  will  bring  about 
seventy-five  and  sixty  cents  respectively  ;  but  a  tapestry 
gives  a  much  better  finish  to  a  room  and  is  almost  universally 
preferred  to  a  fine  ingrain.  As  a  consequence,  a  very  small 
quantity  of  the  latter  is  now  made  while  the  former  is  largely 
consumed.  New  York  takes  the  lead  in  its  manufarture, 
having  (Feb.  i,  1890)  962  looms  of  the  1527  in  operation  in 


30  The  Recent  Development  of 

the  United  States.  Philadelphia  comes  next  with  320,  while 
New  England  has  less  than  200.  In  1880  the  total  output 
of  the  United  States  was  about  9,500,000  yards,  but  in 
1890  it  was  over  20,500,000,  valued  at  nearly  $12,000,000. 
The  already  large  consumption  of  tapestries  is  destined  to  be 
enormously  increased  if  the  recent  invention  of  Dunlap  & 
Co.  proves  a  success.  The  carpet  is  first  woven  without 
color  and  then  printed  by  means  of  a  revolving  roller  at  the 
rate  of  forty  yards  per  minute.  This  machine  will  cheapen 
tapestries  one-half  as,  owing  to  its  marvelous  rapidity,  one 
printer  can  keep  200  looms  running  and  at  the  same  time 
many  of  the  difficulties  of  making  the  figures  match  by  the 
present  method  of  weaving  are  removed.  The  great  difficulty 
is  to  print  firm  enough  to  give  a  lasting  color  and  not  press 
the  nap  down  too  much.  This  is  overcome  by  means  of 
steaming,  which  brings  the  nap  up  perfectly,  and  in  the 
experiments  which  have  been  tried,  all  attempts  to  make  the 
colors  fade  have  only  rendered  them  brighter. 

In  1876  a  new  branch  of  the  carpet  industry  was  started 
in  the  manufacture  of  the  ' '  Smyrna  "  rugs,  a  heavy,  revers- 
ible, tufted  fabric,  with  the  two  sides  identical  in  figure  and 
color.  It  is  now  made  in  all  sizes,  from  two  and  a  half  feet 
long  up  to  twelve  by  fifteen.  The  United  States  makes 
more  of  these  than  all  other  countries  combined,  the  great 
centre  being  Philadelphia,  where  is  situated  the  largest  rug 
plant  in  the  world,  that  of  John  Bromley  &  Sons.  There  are 
now  seventeen  large  mills,  ten  of  which  are  ;n  this  city. 

The  remarkable  growth  of  the  carpet  industry  in  the 
United  States  has  taken  place  mainly  since  1860,  more  espe- 
cially in  Philadelphia.  Thirty  years  ago  the  hand  loom  was 
in  its  prime  throughout  Kensington,  where  the  power  loom 
was  looked  upon  more  as  an  experimental  curiosity  than  a 
practical  aid  to  labor.  Usually  the  employer  worked  side  by 
side  with  his  weaver,  who  earned  good  wages  and  was  as 
much  respected  among  his  neighbors  as  a  high-class  mer- 
chant is  now.  'Skilled  Englishmen,  Scotchmen,  and  Irish- 
men all  found  ready  employment  and  a  ready  return  for  their 
labor.  The  total  number  of  factories  in  the  United  States 


American  Industries.  31 

was  213,  but  the  product  amounted  to  only  about  13,000,000 
yards,  valued  at  nearly  $8,000,000,  an  increase  of  2,500,- 
ooo  over  the  output  in  1850.  In  1870  the  number  of  fac- 
tories was  only  increased  by  three,  but  the  amount  of  the 
product  swelled  to  32,000,000  yards,  valued  at  about 
$22,000,000,  with  an  invested  capital  of  $12,500,000.  Wages 
on  hand  looms  began  to  decrease  owing  to  the  competition 
on  the  power  looms.  In  1882  we  find  an  invested  capital  of 
upwards  of  $25,000,000;  340  establishments  (including  many 
small  concerns,  not  factories,  strictly  speaking),  in  which 
were  over  5,000  hand  looms,  4,200  power  looms  and  22,000 
operatives.  The  total  output  was  62,000,000  yards,  valued 
at  $50,500,000;  of  this  over  27,000,00  yards  were  in- 
grain (one-half  of  which  was  of  the  cheap  cotton  grade)  14,- 
000,000  tapestry  and  8,500,000  body-Brussels  and  Wilton. 
The  estimated  increase  in  the  number  of  factories  from  1850 
to  1880  was  over  80  per  cent.;  in  capital  20  percent.;  and  in 
the  number  of  employees  8  per  cent. ;  the  latter  mainly  an 
increase  in  the  number  of  females  employed,  rendered  possi- 
ble by  the  introduction  of  the  power  loom.  Wages  had  in- 
creased 20  per  cent.  In  1890  we  find  a  considerable  change. 
Hand  looms  have  practically  disappeared,  and  the  factories, 
though  numbering  only  about  150,  have  been  greatly  en- 
larged and  run  (February  i,  1891,)  in  the  aggregate  some- 
thing over  8,000  power  looms.  The  total  output  was  (in 
1890)  about  85,000,000  yards  (excluding  Moquettes),  valued 
at  over  $54,000,000,  which,  with  the  $3,000,000  worth  of 
Moquette,  made  only  in  New  York  and  Massachusetts,  makes 
a  grand  total  of  $57,000,000.  Of  the  85,000,000  yards  47 
were  ingrain,  20^  tapestry  (Brussels  and  velvet),  and  17 
body-Brussels  and  Wilton.  Philadelphia  produces  over  half 
of  this,  46,000,000  yards,  valued  at  $29,000,000;  New  York, 
19,000,000  yards,  valued  at  $13,500,000;  and  Massachusetts, 
13,500,000  yards,  valued  at  $10,000,000. 

The  improvements  in  machinery  enabling  our  large  pro- 
duction have  greatly  cheapened  carpets  and  thus  tended 
strongly  to  increase  our  present  large  per  capita  consumption, 
it  being  ten-fold  greater  than  in  1860.  Fine  tapestries  and 


32  The  Recent  Development  of 

Brussels  can  now  be  obtained  at  the  former  cost  of  the  rudest 
ingrain. 

The  enormous  product  85,000,000  yards  is  consumed  en- 
tirely at  home,  making  a  per  capita  consumption  of  nearly 
a  yard  and  a  half,  far  more  than  in  any  foreign  country. 
The  primary  cause  of  the  remarkably  large  use  of  carpets 
in  the  United  States  is  the  fact  that  civilization  is  main- 
tained in  this  country  at  a  lower  winter  isothermal  than 
elsewhere.  Also,  our  houses  are  built  so  poorly,  compared 
with  other  countries,  that  a  carpet  of  some  kind  is  almost  an 
absolute  necessity.  No  American  carpets  are  exported,  as 
our  one  chance  for  trade  on  this  line  lies  in  the  cheaper 
grades,  and  the  only  demand  for  these  is  at  home,  as  it  is  in 
the  United  States  alone  that  the  floors  of  the  homes  of  the 
so-called  laboring  classes  are  carpeted. 

The  decade  from  1870-80  witnessed  the  decline  and  prac- 
tical extinction  of  the  foreign  carpet  trade  in  the  United 
States  side  by  side  with  the  growth  and  monopoly  of  the 
home  market  by  our  own  factories.  The  English  and  French 
could  undersell  us  without  the  tariff  (30  to  4oc.  per  yard 
plus  40  to  50  per  cent,  ad  valorem,  according  to  the  quality) 
on  account  of  the  greater  cheapness  of  labor.  In  1880  our 
imports  of  all  grades  were  1,443,535  yards  (value  in  England 
$1,237,431,  and  in  1890  this  had  decreased  to  578,764  yards, 
value  $873,800). 

In  conclusion,  a  word  must  be  said  in  regard  to  the  design- 
ing. Formerly  designs  were  very  scarce,  all  of  them  being 
imported,  and  nothing  was  thought  of  stealing  another's 
patterns.  About  1875  the  Eastern  mills  began  to  patent 
their  choicer  designs,  and  now  the  standard  of  ethics  in  re- 
gard to  appropriating  those  of  another  is  much  higher. 
Designers'  wages  range  from  $10  to  $20  per  week,  and  a 
good  design  will  sell  all  the  way  from  twenty  to  fifty  dollars, 
depending  entirely  upon  its  merits,  though  as  yet  this  branch 
of  artistic  work  is  not  so  well  paid  as  some  others. 

HARVEY  E.  PLATT. 


American  Industries.  33. 


CHAPTER  IV. 
THE  WORSTED  INDUSTRY. 

Up  to  the  nineteenth  century  wools  were  divided  into  two- 
great  classes,  short  or  clothing  wools,  and  long  or  combing 
wools;  woolens  were  made  from  the  former  and  worsteds  from 
the  latter.  Worsteds  were  then  made  from  hand-combed 
wool,  and  wool  having  a  fibre  of  from  9  to  12  inches  was  the 
grade  commonly  used.  When  Dr.  Cortwright  patented  his 
wool-combing  machine  the  era  of  hand-combing  ended  and 
the  reign  of  machinery  began.  The  machine-combed  wool 
was  all  equally  mixed,  and  the  slivers  were  uniform  and  of 
any  required  length,  so  it  was  better  for  machine  spinning. 
Since  Cortwright' s  invention  was  made  there  have  been  be- 
tween four  and  five  hundred  more  inventions  brought  out, 
the  most  important  of  which  are  the  Square  Motion,  the 
Noble  and  the  Heilman.  These  are  all  wool-combing  ma- 
chines and  their  value  will  be  explained  later  on. 

Worsted  yarns  can  be  divided  into  three  distinct  kinds. 
First,  that  obtained- from  short  and  medium  stapled  wools, 
which  are  made  into  yarn  by  carding,  gilling  and  combing; 
this  class  is  very  useful  to  the  clothing  manufacturer.  Second, 
a  valuable  thread  is  produced  from  long  wools,  which  have 
a  fibre  embracing  in  length  four  or  five  inches.  These  wools 
are  not  carded,  but  simply  gilled  and  combed  after  the  fibres 
have  been  regularly  straightened  by  hand.  Carding  long 
wools  would  be  injurious,  because  it  would  break  the  fibres 
and  so  produce  a  large  quantity  of  noil,  a  point  which  can 
not  be  too  closely  guarded  against  in  making  worsted  yarns. 
Third,  in  making  a  soft,  open  thread,  where  plenty  of  full- 
ness and  fibre  is  required,  the  wool  is  neither  combed  nor 
gilled,  but  is  first  carded  and  then  afterwards  is  drawn  and 
spun.  Such  threads  are  used  in  carpets  and  in  some  classes 
of  knitting  or  fingering  yarns. 

No  matter  what  system  of  thread  production  is  used  the 


34  The  Recent  Development  of 

principle  of  manufacture  is  the  same,  for  in  all  worsted  yarns 
the  fibres  are  more  or  less  straightened  and  arranged  in  one 
order.  The  more  combing  and  gilling  that  the  wool  gets  the 
higher  will  be  the  degree  of  parallelism  attained.  This 
parallelism  is  the  distinguishing  mark  between  worsteds  and 
woolens.  In  woolens  the  distinctive  feature  is  the  thorough 
mixing  together  of  the  fibre  so  as  to  produce  a  level  sliver, 
but  there  is  no  regular  system  of  amalgamation  adopted,  and 
in  the  condensed  material  fibre  may  (lay)  either  across  or 
lengthwise  of  the  thread,  but  in  worsted  yarns,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  object  is  to  form  a  continuous  ribbon  of  fibres  uni- 
form in  thickness  throughout  its  length  and  breadth,  and  in 
particular  the  filaments  must  be  parallel  with  each  other. 

In  being  transformed  from  wool  into  a  worsted  yarn  the 
raw  material  passes  through  the  following  processes:  (i)  it 
is  opened  and  separated,  but  crossed  and  intermingled  on  the 
wire  of  the  carder;  (2)  it  is  straightened,  extended  and 
levelled  in  gilling;  (3)  the  short  and  curly  fibres  are  extracted 
and  the  straight  and  long  ones  are  laid  parallel  one  to  the 
other  in  combing;  (4)  an  even  ribbon  is  formed  on  the  draw- 
ing frame;  (5)  the  thick,  rope-like  thread  produced  in  roving 
is  twisted  into  a  weavable  yarn  on  the  spinning  machine. 
The  preliminary  processes  of  scouring,  oiling,  blending  and 
carding  are  almost  identical  in  both  ( woolen  and  worsted 
yarn  production.  The  processes  which  belong,  strictly  speak- 
ing, to  worsted  yarn  manufacture  are  back  washing,  gilling, 
combing,  drawing,  roving  and  spinning  on  the  throstle 
frame. 

When  the  material  leaves  the  carder  it  is  somewhat  dis- 
colored by  the  oil  which  was  added  to  facilitate  its  passage 
through  the  carding  machine,  and  it  also  contains  a  certain 
per  cent,  of  dirty  substances.  It  is  best  to  remove  such  im- 
purities and  to  thoroughly  cleanse  the  "cardings"  of  all 
greasy  and  foreign  matter.  This  work  is  done  by  the  back- 
washing  machine.  The  object  of  gilling  is  to  straighten  the 
fibres,  to  draw  out  and  level  the  carding,  and  to  prepare  the 
material  for  the  combing  machine.  There  is  a  twofold  object 
to  be  attained  in  combing — first,  to  thoroughly  adjust  the 


American  Industries.  35 

fibre  in  parallel  form;  and,  second,  to  remove  the  short  curly 
fibre  present  in  the  wool.  Although  gilling  produces  a 
fairly  level  ribbon,  yet,  if  it  is  closely  examined  it  will  be 
found  to  be  a  combination  of  short  and  long,  crimpy  and 
straight  fibres.  All  wavy  filaments  are  unfit  for  use  in 
worsted  yarn  until  they  are  straightened.  On  account  of 
this,  in  the  combing  operation,  the  wool  is  divided  into  two 
distinct  classes,  the  long  fibres  of  the  gilled  ribbon  are 
combed  and  form  the  top,  but  the  short  and  wavy  fibres  are 
•cast  out  as  noil. 

A  level  ribbon  can  be  obtained  by  frequent  gilling,  but 
something  more  is  needed  if  it  is  wished  to  form  a  lustrous 
thread  having  a  smooth,  uniform  surface.  To  do  this  the 
fibres  which  retain  their  crimpy  nature  and  resist  the  action 
of  the  gill-pins  must  be  extracted  and  even  totally  removed 
from  the  ribbon,  if  that  is  possible.  The  main  function  of 
the  combing  machine  is  performing  this  work.  The  Noble 
or  circular  comb  is  the  one  commonly  used  to  prepare  yarns 
from  medium  and  short  stapled  wools,  the  ' '  nip  ' '  is  used  on 
the  long  lustre  wools,  while  the  square  motion  machine  is 
largely  used  in  combing  fine  wools.  After  combing,  the  next 
process  is  drawing.  Here  the  purpose  is  to  combine  several 
ribbons  and  extenuate  them  to  such  an  extent  as  to  produce 
a  thick,  soft  thread  which,  when  twisted,  will  form  a  yarn 
capable  of  bearing  the  tension  and  friction  of  weaving. 
Roving  is  the  last  operation  before  spinning.  It  is  a  com- 
bination of  drawing  and  twisting,  with  an  excess  of  drawing, 
while  spinning  is  a  combination  of  the  same  processes  with 
an  excess  of  twisting. 

The  finishing  processes  in  making  worsted  cloth  do  not 
make  very  great  distinctive  changes,  for  here  the  character 
of  the  weave  or  the  effect  of  crossing  the  threads  is  not  only 
carefully  preserved,  but  is  also  smoothly  and  boldly  devel- 
oped. A  worsted  cloth  in  the  loom,  if  wrell  woven,  is  the 
same,  to  a  very  considerable  degree,  in  appearance  and 
handle  as  when  in  the  finished  or  salable  condition.  The 
only  marked  alteration  that  finishing  gives  is  a  desirable 
improvement  in  the  qualities  of  softness  and  lustre.  An 


36  The  Recent  Development  of 

ordinary  buyer  would  possibly  notice  that  the  effect  of  the 
weave  or  make  is  more  pronounced  in  the  finished  goods 
than  in  the  material  in  the  loom,  but  this  effect  is  caused  by 
cropping  or  cutting  the  loose  and  straggling  fibres  that  appear 
on  the  surface  of  a  woven  labric.  The  worsted  fabric  neither 
increases  to  any  material  degree  in  thickness  or  strength 
during  the  finishing  operation,  but  a  woolen  fabric,  espe- 
cially when  milled  for  a  long  time,  increases  both  in  density 
and  fulness  of  handle,  as  a  result  of  the  finishing  operations. 
The  woolen  fabric  while  in  the  loom,  does  not  show  to  any 
marked  extent  what  the  finished  product  will  be.  In  the 
finished  product,  the  bare  surface  and  thready  handle  the 
fabric  possesses  in  the  loom  are  no  longer  distinguishable  ; 
for  the  former  is  substituted  a  soft,  velvety  pile,  and  for  the 
latter  a  clothy  and  elastic  touch.  A  greater  variety  of  effects 
by  finishing  can  be  produced  in  woolen  than  in  worsted 
goods,  for,  in  a  worsted  cloth,  whether  single  or  backed, 
there  is  always  one  feature,  namely  a  well  pronounced  weave 
effect,  and  a  clear,  bright  face,  which  shows  that  one  style 
of  finish  is  largely  used.  In  the  case  of  woolen  goods  it  is 
very  different  and  several  varieties  of  effects  can  be  produced. 
The  production  of  both  woolens  and  worsteds  has  largely 
increased  since  1860  when  the  number  of  factories  engaged 
in  the  production  of  all  kinds  of  woolen  and  worsteds  was 
1476,  and  the  value  of  the  material  they  produced  was  $72,- 
194,000.  In  1870  there  were  1938  factories,  employing  17,870 
laborers,  and  producing  $151,298,176  worth  of  goods;  in 
1880,  there  were  2,689  factories,  employing  161,551  laborers, 
and  producing  $267,252,913  worth  of  goods.  (The  figures 
for  1860  are  estimates,  but  those  for  1870  and  1880  are  taken 
from  United  States  census  reports  for  the  respective  years.") 
Of  the  individual  states  Massachusetts  employed  more 
laborers  and  produced  more  goods,  but  Pennsylvania  had 
more  factories,  in  1870.  In  1880  Pennsylvania  employed 
more  laborers,  but  did  not  produce  as  much  as  Massachusetts. 
The  figures  in  the  last  census  are  not  out  yet,  but  an  extract 
from  a  pamphlet  issued  by  a  prominent  firm  of  wool  com- 
mission merchants  of  Philadelphia  probably  defines  the 


American  Industries.  37 

-situation  correctly.  This  firm  says  :  "  Worsted  spinners  are 
busy  and  prosperous,  but  the  woolen  manufacturers  do  not 
find  much  encouragement  in  the  situation  "  (March  2,  1891.) 
Since  1860,  when  there  were  only  3,  the  number  of  worsted 
factories  had  largely  increased  ;  in  1880  there  were  76,  and 
the  popularity  of  worsted  fabrics  has  kept  pace  with  the 
number  of  factories. 

The  question  arises,  what  causes  this  popularity  ?  Some 
persons  say  the  tariff  causes  the  increased  demand  for  this 
class  of  goods.  But  this  is  a  false  view.  The  tariff  may,  and 
undoubtedly  by  its  protective  features  does  cause  the  number 
of  factories  in  the  United  States  to  increase  largely,  but  it 
does  not  cause  a  demand  for  worsteds.  Only  by  lowering 
the  duties  on  worsteds  imported,  which  is  something  our 
manufacturers  do  not  wish,  or  by  raising  the  duties  on  other 
woolen  fabrics,  which  discrimination  would  not  be  tolerated 
by  the  other  manufacturers,  could  the  tariff  create  such  a 
demand. 

Another  man  says  that  "  Dame  Fashion  "  is  the  responsi- 
ble party.     But  fashion  is  a  capricious  creature,  and  while, 
no  doubt,  her  moods  and  inclinations  do  cause  styles  to  vary 
faster  than  the  weather,  the  popularity  of  worsteds  shows  a 
slow,  steady  increase,  and  fashion  is  too  fickle  to  ever  have 
caused  such  a  popularity.   By  examining  to  find  out  what  suits 
are  made  from  woolens  and  what  from  worsteds  we  ascertain 
that  dress  suits  and  cheviots  are  made  from  woolens  and 
•' '  cut-a-ways"   and  summer  suits  are  niade  from  worsteds. 
From  this  we  see  that  worsteds  are  the  common  material  in 
summer,  and  in  winter  ''cut-a-ways"  are  extensively  worn, 
so  that  as  a  natural  sequence  worsteds  are  in  a  large  excess. 
Seeking  for  the  reason  why  ' '  cut-a-ways ' '  are  made  from 
worsteds,  we  ascertain  that  it  is  due  to  the  superior  lustre 
and  uniformity  of  surface,  which  textiles  made  from  the 
fabric  possess.     The  system  of  preparation  used  in  making 
worsteds  gives  more  scope  for  pattern  production  of  a  weave 
description  than  can  be  obtained  in  woolens.     The  level  and 
regular  structure  of  the  former  imparts  a  distinctness  to 
every  section  of  a  pattern  resulting  from  a  combination  of 


38  The  Recent  Development  of 

different  weaves,  and  hence  the  variety  of  effects  which  are 
found  in  worsted  trousers  and  coats,  both  in  highly  colored 
patterns  and  piece-dyed  goods  or  fabrics  of  one  shade 
throughout.  In  brief,  the  advantages  of  a  piece  of  worsted 
goods  are:  (i)  a  texture,  i.  £.,  a  clear  surface;  (2)  a  more 
definitely  pronounced  weave  effect.  In  making  woolens  the 
mechanical  system  of  adjusting  the  fibres  produces  a  thread 
with  a  somewhat  indefinite  and  fibrous  surface,  which  neu- 
tralizes the  character  of  the  weave,  or  destroys,  in  some 
degree,  the  effect  in  the  woven  goods  due  to  crossing  warp 
and  weft  threads  at  right  angles  to  each  other.  The  color- 
ings of  the  pattern  are  well  blended  and  the  fabric  is  well 
milled. 

The  superior  lustre  of  worsted  is  due  to  two  causes:  (i)  a 
parallel  arrangement  of  fibres  admits  of  a  more  powerful  re- 
flection of  light  than  if  crossed  at  any  and  every  angle  im- 
aginable, as  is  the  case  in  woolens;  (2)  in  making  woolens 
a  large  variety  of  fibres  are  scribbled  together,  and  this 
necessitates  a  high  degree  of  twist  in  order  to  reduce  the  size 
of  the  sliver  and  impart  the  required  strength  and  elasticity 
to  the  spun  yarn.  This  twist  forces  the  fibres  into  the  centre 
of  the  thread  and  naturally  gives  it  solidity  and  compact- 
ness, but  at  the  same  time  it  detracts  from  the  reflecting 
power  of  the  individual  fibres  which  help  to  form  the  yarn. 
By  lustre  is  not  meant  that  shiny  appearance  which  cloth 
obtains  from  long  wear  and  which  was  a  common  thing  for 
worsteds  formerly  to  possess,  but  in  the  worsteds  now  used 
it  is  largely,  though  not  entirely,  obviated. 

Worsteds  are  capable  of  sustaining  more  tension  in  pro- 
portion to  their  size  and  thickness  than  woolens.  As  a  con- 
sequence worsteds  of  the  same  strength  as  woolens  can  be 
made  thinner  and  lighter  ;  and,  therefore,  of  course,  they 
are  more  comfortable  for  summer  wear. 

DE  Pui  VAIL. 


American  Industries.  39 


CHAPTER  V. 
COTTON  MANUFACTURES. 

Cotton  manufactures  are  of  very  ancient  origin,  modern 
improvements  dating  back  only  one  hundred  and  fifty  years. 
England's  prominence  in  the  industry  is  due  to  the  import- 
ance of  the  inventions  made  in  that  country;  among  the  most 
important  of  which  are  the  spinning  jenny,  the  mule,  and 
the  power  loom.  Through  these  inventions  England  gained 
the  supremacy,  in  the  manufacture  of  cotton  fabrics;  and 
to  keep  the' monopoly  of  the  trade  she  knew  something  must 
be  done  to  prevent  other  nations  from  manufacturing.  In 
pursuance  of  this  policy  she  passed,  in  1770,  an  act  which 
forbade  the  exportation  of  machinery,  models  of  machinery, 
etc.,  and  any  one  caught  was  guilty  of  a  criminal  offense. 

In  the  colonies  this  law  retarded  the  growth  of  the  cotton 
industry,  and  until  the  arrival  of  Samuel  Slater,  in  1/89, 
the  industry  was  of  small  importance.  But  with  Slater  a 
new  era  commences.  The  Arkwright  machinery  is  introduced 
and  successfully  worked.  Other  improvements  were  made, 
and  the  industry  firmly  established. 

No  sooner  did  it  become  known  that  the  manufacture  of 
cotton  could  be  carried  on  successfully — in  consequence  of 
the  invention  of  the  cotton  gin  than  factories  were  established 
all  over  New  England  and  in  the  Middle  States.     In  June, 
1799,    Slater    established   the  mills    at    Rehoboth,   Mass., 
and  they  were  exempted   from  taxation  for   the  period  of 
seven  years.    In  1806,  Slaterville,  with  its  immense  mill  was 
started  by  this  wonderful  man.     The  celebrated  New  York 
mills  were  established  in  1808,  by  the  Wolcotts.    The  mills  in 
those   days   were   generally  built    where  water-power   was 
available,    and    therefore   in   narrow   valleys  and   places  in 
which  mills  of  only  very  narrow  structure  could  be  built. 

Cotton  manufacture  was  finally  established  here  on  a 
lasting  basis.  According  to  Mr.  Jachariah  Allen,  the  num- 


4-O  The  Recent  Development  of 

her  of  spindles  in  the  United  States  in  1807  was  4,000.  By 
1809,  according  to  Benedict's  "  History  of  Rhode  Island," 
within  the  neighborhood  of  Providence  there  were  17 
factories,  working  14,296  spindles,  and  by  1812,  in  Rhode 
Island  and  Massachusetts,  there  were  53  factories  working 
48,030  spindles.  Tench  Coxe,  in  his  census  report  of  1810, 
gives  the  number  of  cotton  mills  in  the  United  States  at  248, 
which  were  situated  in  Pennsylvania,  Massachusetts,  Rhode 
Island,  New  York,  Kentucky,  Connecticut,  New  Hampshire, 
Maryland,  Delaware,  Ohio  and  Tennessee.  The  majority 
were  built  after  the  plan  of  Slater's,  the  spinning  being  done 
by  the  water-frame  (each  section  having  eight  spindles). 
In  1808  the  throstle  spinning  frame  was  introduced. 

The  embargo  and  the  war  with  England,  together  with 
the  high  prices  from  natural  causes,  gave  great  impetus  to  the 
production  of  all  such  goods  that  could  be  manufactured 
here,  especially  cottons.  English  cottons,  which  formerly 
brought  seventeen  to  twenty  cents  per  yard,  were  sold  at 
seventy-five  cents.  Providence,  before  the  war,  had  17  mills, 
and  after  the  war  Providence  and  the  immediate  vicinity  had 
•96  mills,  working  65,264  spindles. 

According  to  a  report  of  the  Committee  on  Manufactures 
in  1815,  the  capital  invested  in  cotton  manufacture  in  the 
United  States  amounted  to  $40,000,000,  employing  100,000 
hands,  using  27,000,000  pounds  of  raw  material,  manufac- 
turing 8 1, ooo, ooo yards  of  fabrics  valued  at  $24,300,000. 

One  can  see  to  what  extent  this  industry  had  grown.  But 
no  sooner  was  the  war  over  and  peace  declared,  than  England 
flooded  our  markets  with  goods;  as  she  knew  that  to  regain 
her  foot-hold  here,  she  must  kill  our  manufactories.  Our 
industries  had  been  established  hastily,  and  carried  on 
without  much  skill  or  economy,  the  people  being  under  the 
necessity  of  buying  American  goods,  as  they  could  get  no 
other.  As  soon  as  the  English  goods  were  again  purchasable, 
the  establishments  created  at  such  a  great  expense,  became 
worthless.  To  protect  these  industries  the  tariff  of  1816 
was  passed  by  Congress. 

The  majority  of   the   mills  before   this   time   had    been 


American  Industries.  41 

employed  in  the  production  of  yarn,  which  was  woven  upon 
the  hand-loom.  The  year  1814  marks  a  great  change  in  the 
cotton  industry  in  the  United  States.  Power-looms  were 
put  in  operation  at  Waltham. 

The  power-loom  was  used  to  some  extent  in  England  before 
the  war  of  1812,  but  the  principle  was  an  old  one,  Cartright 
being  the  first  to  invent  one  which  met  with  any  success. 
On  his  principle  many  improvements  were  made.  In  America 
T.  C.  Lowell  was  the  first  to  complete  a  loom  which  worked 
successfully.  This  loom  was  called  the  cam-loom,  and  by 
1814  Mr.  Lowell  and  others  had  an  establishment  running, 
which  used  his  loom. 

The  crank-loom  was  introduced  by  William  Gilmore,  an 
Englishman,  who  worked  in  the  English  mills  and  had  oper- 
ated on  the  loom  and  dresser.  He  went  to  the  Slaters,  in 
Rhode  Island,  and  proposed  to  build  them  a  set  of  looms, 
but  business  was  dull  at  the  time  and  his  offer  pushed  aside; 
but  in  the  spring  of  1816  he  was  given  an  order  for  twelve 
looms,  which  were  working  by  May,  1817. 

The  manufacturers  of  Massachusetts,  and  afterwards  of 
New  Hampshire,  adopted  the  plan  used  at  Waltham,  and 
which  was  known  as  the  Waltham  system.  It  consisted  of 
the  cam-loom,  the  dead  spindle,  the  double  speeder,  worker, 
Waltham  dressing-frame  and  filling-frame.  The  Rhode 
Island  mills  had  a  different  system,  which  consisted  of  the 
crank-loom,  the  tube-speeder,  the  Scotch  dresser,  the  mule 
and  live  spindle.  The  latter  system  was  superior,  and  was 
«at  last  used  in  preference  to  the,  other,  its  loom  being  used 
at  Waltham  about  1827,  and  its  mule  in  1830. 

This  preference  was  due  to  the  fact  that  one  system  was 
the  work  of  a  practical  business  man,  who  knew  the  needs  of 
the  industry,  while  the  other  was  the  work  of  ingenious 
mechanics,  who  had  no  great  practical  knowledge  of  the  re- 
quirements of  the  industry. 

With  the  aid  of  protection  and  improved  machinery  the 
cotton  manufactures  made  great  strides.  According  to  the 
report  of  the  fourth  census,  the  amount  of  cotton  consumed 
was  9,945,609  Ibs.,  an  increase  of  one  hundred  and  seventy- 


42  The  Recent  Development  of 

six  per  cent,  over  1810,  but  a  decrease  from  1815  of  one 
hundred  and  seventy  per  cent.  This  census  is  not  very  ac- 
curate. The  number  of  spindles  are  given  at  250,572,  an 
increase  from  1810  of  two  hundred  and  thirteen  per  cent. 

Calico  printing  was  done  in  this  country  as  far  back  as  the 
latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  cloth  being  im- 
ported for  the  purpose.  It  was  not  before  1803  that  a  mill 
which  manufactured  the  fabric  printed  it  also.  In  that  year 
the  Globe  Mill,  at  Philadelphia,  added  this  process  to  its  in- 
dustry. In  1822  the  Lowell  cotton  mills  followed  its  example. 

By  1831  there  were  in  the  United  States  801  mills;  the 
number  of  spindles  was  1,246,703  ;  the  number  of  looms  was 
33>433I  the  number  of  employees  was  62,208;  the  amount 
of  capital  invested  was  $40,612,984;  the  amount  of  raw 
material  yearly  used  was  77,457,316  Ibs. 

A  period  of  inventions  and  improvements  followed,  and 
cotton  manufacturing  had  its  share.  The  most  important 
invention  in  the  cotton  industry  was  the  eclipse  speeder,  for 
making  roving,  patented  in  1829,  by  Gilbert  Brewester,  of 
Poughkeepsie.  The  importance  of  this  was  due  to  its 
cheapness  and  the  great  amount  of  work  it  was  capable  of 
producing.  The  stop-motion  on  the  drawing-frames,  was 
first  used  by  Samuel  Batchelder,  at  Saco,  Maine  (1832).  In 
the  drawing- frame,  the  great  objection  was  that  the  strands 
broke  so  easily,  and  the  machine  had  to  be  stopped  often, 
preventing  a  high  rate  of  speed  and  resulting  in  many  imper- 
fections. The  stop-motion  stopped  the  machine  as  soon  as 
the  strand  was  broken.  In  Waltham,  this  improvement  was? 
applied  to  the  warper,  thus  preventing  the  warp  from  wrap- 
ping around  the  beam  when  broken .  In  1 83 1 ,  the  ring-spinner 
was  invented  by  John  Sharp,  of  Providence,  which  produced 
yarn  at  a  much  lower  cost.  Improvements  were  made  in 
the  mule  by  William  Mason,  of  Taunton,  in  1846. 

The  principle  of  looms  with  self-acting  temples  was  intro- 
duced about  1830.  This  enabled  one  hand  to  operate  four 
looms  or  more.  In  1850  the  census  was  again  taken,  accord- 
ing to  which  there  were  1,094  establishments  in  the  United 
States.  The  number  of  spindles  and  looms  was  not  taken; 


American  Industries.  43 

the  mills  gave  employment  to  92,286  persons;  the  capital 
invested  was  $74,500,931;  the  amount  of  raw  material  con- 
sumed was  288,588,000  Ibs.,  and  the  value  of  the  products 
was  $65,501,687. 

As  the  machinery  improved,  the  mill  building  also  im- 
proved and  to  an  equal  degree.  The  high,  ill-built,  badly 
lighted  and  ventilated  building  gave  way  to  the  modern 
mill,  which  cannot  be  better  explained  than  in  the  words  of 
Mr.  Edward  Atkinson,  "In  1860  the  'normal'  cotton  mill 
(so  to  speak)  had  become  a  factory  four  or  five  stories  high, 
about  60  feet  wide,  varying  in  length  according  to  the  amount 
of  machinery,  high-studded,  well-lighted,  thoroughly  well 
ventilated,  and  heated  by  radiation  from  steam  pipes." 
Much  is  due  to  these  improvements  for  the  advancement  of 
our  cotton  industry.  In  the  way  of  improvements  in  ma- 
chinery many  small  improvements  were  made,  especially  in 
the  manufacture  of  the  looms,  which  could  now  weave  in- 
tricate patterns  as  rapidly  as  a  most  simple  one. 

The  growth  of  this  decade  is  illustrated  by  the  census  of 
1860.  The  number  of  mills  in  the  United  States  was  1,091; 
the  number  of  spindles,  5,235,727;  of  looms,  126,313;  the 
number  of  hands  employed,  122,028;  the  amount  of  cotton 
yearly  consumed,  422,704,975  Ibs.;  the  value  of  the  products, 
$115,581,774;  and  the  amount  of  capital  invested  $98,585,- 
269.  An  important  change  came  about  in  1866,  the  intro- 
duction of  the  "slasher,"  which  was  used  for  sizing  yarn, 
doing  away  with  the  dresser.  By  means  of  the  "  slasher" 
the  work  which  formerly  took  seven  or  eight  men  to  per- 
form, requiring  the  work  room  to  be  over  100°  Fahrenheit  and 
with  starch  floating  continually  in  the  air,  can  now  be  done 
in  a  well  ventilated  room,  with  an  ordinary  amount  of  heat, 
by  a  man  and  a  boy.  About  this  time  one  of  the  best  of 
modern  inventions  for  the  mill  was  introduced.  Apparatus 
for  the  absorption  of  dust,  fibre  and  other  floating  particles, 
which  formerly  infested  the  air  of  a  cotton  mill,  was  in- 
vented, and  in  which  many  improvements  have  since  been 
made.  Another  great  change  in  the  mill,  which  is  going  on 
now,  started  about  1870,  that  is,  the  substitution  of  steam 


44  The  Recent  Development  of 

for  water  power;  or  rather,  as  in  many  cases,  a  combination 
of  the  two.  The  objectionable  feature  of  water  power  being 
that  it  is  only  available  for  a  certain  time  each  year,  there- 
fore the  benefit  of  the  introduction  of  steam  is  apparent, 
as  it  saves  the  forced  idleness  of  the  mill  when  the  water 
power  is  inadequate.  Another  advantage  gained  by  steam, 
says  Atkinson,  is  "  that  the  factory  may  be  placed  nearer  to 
the  principal  markets,  where  it  can  be  more  conveniently 
supervised  and  more  easily  reached.  The  use  of  steam  also 
renders  a  choice  of  location  perfectly  feasible  *  *  *  and 
in  every  respect  the  work  can  be  conducted  under  better  con- 
ditions." 

The  change  in  the  nationality  of  the  hands,  especially  in 
New  England  and  northern  New  York,  is  marked  at  present. 
The  Irish,  who  took  the  place  of  the  farmer's  sons  and 
daughters,  are  now  drifting  to  other  employment,  and  the 
French  Canadians  are  taking  their  places. 

The  census  of  1880  brings  out  some  interesting  points, 
that  show  the  growth  of  this  important  industry,  notwith- 
standing the  trials  and  misfortunes  which  it  had  to  overcome 
as  a  result  of  the  war.  According  to  the  census  the  number  of 
mills  in  the  United  States  was  756  ;  the  number  of  spindles 
10,653,435;  of  looms,  225,759;  of  employees,  172,544;  the 
amount  of  capital  invested  was  $208,280,346;  the  amount  of 
cotton  consumed  yearly  was  750,343,981  Ibs.;  the  value  of 
the  products  was  $192,090,110.  The  number  of  mills  con- 
siderably decreased,  but  this  is  counter-balanced  by  the  in- 
crease in  the  number  of  spindles  and  looms.  The  falling  off 
in  the  number  of  establishments  is  due  to  the  consolidation 
of  the  mills. 

The  cotton  is  subjected  to  four  different  processes,  cleaning, 
carding,  spinning  and  weaving.  The  first  machine  is  the 
carder,  which  simply  changes  the  rubbing  motion  of  the  old- 
fashioned  hand  cards  into  a  rotary  one,  and  the  cotton  comes 
out  in  a  large  white  rope-like  strand.  The  '  'doffer' '  rolls  them 
up,  while  the  "sliver"  makes  the  cotton  in  the  form  of  a 
thread..  Then  comes  the  drawing  frame,  an  evolution  of  the 
spinning-wheel,  which  draws  out  the  thread.  The  "rover  " 


American  Industries.  45 

with  its  three  stages,  known  as  the  ''slubber"  the  "inter- 
mediate," and  the  "jack,"  continue  the  process  of  twisting. 
Then  comes  the  spindle  and  the  flyer,  which  adds  another 
twist  to  the  thread;  which  operation  is  followed  by  the  mule, 
which  turns  out  the  thread.  "  The  amount  of  twist  given 
the  thread  depends  upon  the  use  to  which  it  is  to  be  put, 
the  warp  requiring  more  than  the  weft. ' '  The  thread  is  then 
sent  to  the  weaving-room,  and  the  many  hundred  fabrics  are 
the  result.  The  loom  now  used  is  a  double-faced,  vertical 
loom,  and  is  a  new  one  which  is  capable  of  very  quick  work, 
but  the  looms  of  to-day  are  said  to  be  heavy  running,  built 
without  any  regard  for  science,  and  should  be  replaced  by 
an  easy  running,  noiseless  circular  loom. 

Statistics  on  the  industry  are  very  imperfect,  many  States 
having  none  at  all.  The  United  States  have  not  collected  any 
since  the  last  census.  According  to  the  census  of  Massachu- 
setts, in  1887  there  were  in  mills,  which  had  a  capital  of 
$96,769,183;  stock  was  valued  at  $32,513,979;  value  of  the 
goods  was  $68,992,188,  and  number  of  employees  was  56,499. 
This  growth  is  the  same  all  over  New  England.  The  South 
has  loomed  up  in  this  industry  to  a  great  extent,  and  its 
goods  are  on  the  market,  as  well  as  the  goods  of  the  North; 
and  the  South  has  every  reason  to  become  a  cotton  manu- 
facturing section,  having  cheap  fuel,  cheap  labor,  cheap 
power  and  cheap  raw  material.  There  are  in  the  South  336 
mills,  working  40,819  looms  and  1,819,291  spindles.  Truly 
it  is  a  formidable  competitor  of  the  North. 

The  great  growth  of  the  South,  with  its  increased  facilities; 
our  many  improvements  in  the  speed  of  machinery;  honest 
goods,  with  no  sizing  and  filling;  will  soon  enable  us  to 
displace  England  and  other  competitors  in  the  markets  of 
the  world  in  which  cotton  goods  are  demanded. 

WIUJAM  BENI  ROSSKAM. 


46  The  Recent  Development  of 


CHAPTER  VI. 

ELECTRICITY. 

It  is  of  itself  interesting  to  consider  with  what  rapid 
strides  electricity  is  taking  its  rank  as  a  prominent  factor  in 
our  modern  life.  Such  consideration  develops  various 
amazing  truths,  and  the  impression  that  this  mysterious 
force  is  somehow  inseparably  united  with  the  progress  of 
civilization  early  becomes  a  decided  conviction.  Why  this 
union  exists  is  readily  understood  if  it  be  recognized  that 
the  service  of  the  one  is  inextricably  interwoven  with  the 
very  foundation  wants  of  the  other. 

Light  and  power  are  ever  the  requirements  of  civilized  life. 
The  electric  current  is  the  medium  through  which  those  re- 
quirements may  be  most  satisfactorily  met.  The  ever-in- 
creasing importance,  then,  of  such  a  medium  is  to  be  expected. 
Probably  in  no  better  way  can  the  importance  of  light  and 
power  be  emphasized  than  by  the  negative  way  of  supposing 
their  absence.  History  tells  of  cities  whose  streets  were  as 
dangerous  to  traverse  after  nightfall  as  the  most  dense  In- 
dian jungle.  It  also  records  the  long  years  of  toil  spent  in 
perfecting  machines  whose  purpose  was  to  better  transmit 
power.  When  success  was  attained  industry  was  almost 
revolutionized.  It  is  but  necessary  to  apply  the  after-dark 
conditions  of  the  Middle  Age  city  to  our  own  cities,  and  the 
ancient  water-wheel  to  our  modern  manufacturing  establish- 
ments, to  recognize  how  closely  light  and  power  are  knit 
together  with  progress. 

LIGHT. 

The  electric  lighting  business  is  separable  into  two  forms, 
the  first  being  that  in  which  the  central  station  is  the  im- 
portant feature.  From  this  station  electricity  is  distributed 
for  the  service  of  light  and  power,  and  sold  commercially  for 
the  lighting  of  streets,  stores,  public  places,  offices  and 


American  Industries.  47 

residences.  The  second  form  of  the  business  deals  with 
isolated  plants,  installed  mostly  in  manufacturing  establish- 
ments, public  institutions  and  steamships,  for  lighting  the 
premises  on  which  they  are  placed. 

The  industry  is,  popularly  speaking,  a  ' '  booming ' '  one, 
as  the  fact  that  there  are  over  300,000  arc  and  4,000,000  in- 
candescent lamps  in  use,  over  300,000  men  employed,  and 
above  $300,000,000  of  capital  invested  therein,  eloquently 
attests.  This  relates  to  the  United  States  alone  and  the  light- 
ing business  only,  Mr.  Bdison  estimating  that  if  the  whole 
number  of  electrical  industries  in  our  country  be  taken  the 
capital  invested  in  them  would  be  found  above  $600,000,000. 
The  arc  lamp,  in  the  order  of  development,  was  the  first  to 
herald,  by  its  advent,  a  new  era  in  the  art  of  illumination. 
It  produces  an  immense  quantity  of  light  at  one  point,  but 
before  it  could  be  practically  applied  the  necessity  of  obtain- 
ing subdivision,  of  securing  steadiness  in  burning  and  of  re- 
ducing the  power  consumed  in  production  stood  an  obstacle 
in  the  way.  Progress  in  these  particulars,  however,  has 
been  made  to  such  a  degree  as  to  safely  warrant  the  state- 
ment, that  for  all  places  where  its  use  is  desirable,  the  best 
of  arc  lamp  apparatus  will  produce  the  cheapest  and  most 
satisfactory  light  in  the  world.  For  ordinary  purposes  are 
lamps  are  usually  furnished  in  800,  1,200  and  2,000  candle 
power,  while  for  special  uses  lamps  much  more  powerful  are 
provided.  The  ease  with  which  it  has  always  been  possible 
to  distribute  these  lamps  over  large  areas,  on  account  of  the 
high  tension  necessarily  used  in  producing  the  light,  renders  it 
not  impossible  to  supply  them,  on  an  economical  basis,  ten 
or  twelve  miles  from  the  generating  dynamo. 

The  incandescent  lamp  followed  the  arc  and  is  recognized 
to  be  of  far  greater  importance.  As  in  the  case  of  its  prede- 
cessor there  were  hindrances  to  be  removed  before  its  practi- 
cal application  could  become  possible.  Much  labor  was 
expended  to  cheapen  the  lamp,  to  prolong  its  life,  to  increase 
its  size,  to  measure  the  current  it  consumes  and  to  lengthen 
the  distance  from  the  generating  dynamo  at  which  it  can 
be  produced  economically.  To  trace  out  the  way  in  which 


48  The  Recent  Development  of 

these  results  have  been  accomplished  is  not  within  the 
sphere  of  this  discussion.  It  suffices  to  say  that  incandescent 
lamps  are  now  furnished  of  varying  sizes;  from  16  candle 
power  to  150  candle  power,  their  average  life  being  from  800 
to  1,500  hours  actual  burning.  The  size  and  consequent 
cost  of  the  copper  conductors  requisite  for  its  low  tension 
current  also  checked  for  a  long  time  the  general  adoption  of 
these  lamps. 

The  difficulties  of  distribution  have  now  been  overcome. 
A  number  of  stations  in  the  United  States  furnish  incan- 
descent lamps  on  an  economical  basis  five  miles  distant  from 
the  generating  dynamo.  Service  at  a  greater  distance  could 
be  supplied  if  needed. 

Still  another  drawback  was  the  lack  of  a  simple,  reliable 
meter,  which  would  accurately  measure  the  current.  Cus- 
tomers require  that  the  light  be  always  obtainable,  and  also 
that  no  charge  be  levied  for  such  time  as  it  is  not  in  use.  To 
meet  this  requirement  a  meter  has  been  invented,  the  advan- 
tages of  which  are  simplicity,  easy  reading  and  the  possibility 
of  readily  testing  as  to  accuracy.  •  By  the  adoption  of  this 
improvement  the  last  barrier  which  arrested  the  progress  of 
lighting  by  means  of  incandescent  electric  lamps  was  broken 
down  and  the  pathway  cleared  for  future  growth.  For 
shaded  and  curved  streets,  stores,  offices  and  other  places  of 
business,  for  theatres,  halls,  churches  and  residences  these 
lamps  are  now  preferred.  This  preference  is  the  result  of 
the  superior  quality  of  light,  the  greater  healthfulness, 
comfort  and  safety  and  the  susceptibility  of  use  in  ways  and 
places  otherwise  impracticable. 

With  a  system  combining  arc  and  incandescent  lamps 
having  the  advantages  outlined  above,  better  illumination 
can  be  afforded  an  entire  city  at  no  increase  of  cost  over  any 
method  of  lighting  heretofore  in  use.  Economically  consid- 
ered, the  central  lighting  station,  with  its  service,  is  com- 
petitive with  gas. 

Two  main  questions  spring  out  of  the  above,  requiring 
attention,  namely,  economy  in  electric  lighting  and  the  risk 
of  fires,  with  the  accompanying  risk  of  personal  injury. 


American  Industries.  49 

Comparatively  a  short  time  ago  the  possibility  of  cheap 
lighting  by  electricity  was  seriously  doubted.  The  idea  that 
the  new  light  would  ever  compete  favorably  with  gas  was 
entirely  rejected.  At  present,  however,  such  an  opinion  is 
not  warranted  by  facts.  Dr.  Louis  Bell  says  that  where  incan- 
descent lamps  can  be  obtained  at  one  cent  per  lamp  per  hour 
or  an  equivalent  contract  price,  they  will  compete  on  favor- 
able terms  not  only  with  gas  but  with  oil,  supposing  equal 
illumination  in  each  case.  Aside  from  this  the  greater  cleanli- 
ness and  convenience  of  the  incandescent  lamp  should  com- 
mend it  even  where  it  is  slightly  at  a  disadvantage.  Mr.  A.  R. 
Foote  affirms,  that  all  advantages  considered,  the  arc  lamp 
is  incomparably  the  cheapest  light  in  the  world  for  street  use. 
The  popular  idea  that  a  large  number  of  fires  originate 
through  the  presence  of  the  electric  light  wires  is  effectually 
disproven  by  figures.  The  same  method  may  be  equally  well 
employed  to  demonstrate  that  the  "'death-dealing"  wire  has 
not  caused  so  many  fatal  accidents  as  other  of  our  modern 
conveniences  to  which  we  have  become  accustomed. 

Undoubtedly  fires  have  originated  from  the  use  of  the 
electric  current  in  buildings,  but  nearly  all  the  trouble  has 
been  occasioned  by  defective  wiring,  a  curable  fault,  which 
may,  perhaps,  be  ascribed  to  the  unusual  rapid  development 
of  the  industry.  However  this  may  be,  it  is  positively  as- 
certained that  oil  and  gas  are  blameable  for  more  fires,  and 
that  there  are  more  accidents  from  horses  on  the  streets,  more 
accidents  with  steam  engines,  more  accidents  even  from  the 
building  operations  going  on  every  year,  than  are  caused  by 
this  agency. 

Inquiries  made  for  the  purpose  of  determining  the  num- 
ber of  injuries  sustained  by  employees  of  central  station 
companies  during  the  year  1890  revealed  the  fact,  that  of  213 
companies  45  could  record  no  accidents,  and  of  the  remain- 
ing 168  companies,  employing  1,233  men,  reported  but  seven 
accidents,  none  of  which  were  fatal.  The  report  recently 
made  by  William  McDevitt,  Chief  Inspector  of  the  city  of 
Philadelphia,  contains  important  testimony  in  support  of  the 
statement  above. 


50  The  Recent  Development  of 

"There  are  over  5,000  buildings  in  Philadelphia  wherein 
electric  currents  are  used  for  light  and  power  purposes.  Of 
this  number  287  buildings  (7  of  which  are  dwellings)  have 
their  own  apparatus,  the  latter  varying  in  size  from  a  20 
light  to  one  of  4,000  lights.  The  number  of  lights  furnished 
by  these  private  plants  aggregate  80,258  incandescent  and 
3,325  arc  lights." 

"There  are  15  public  stations  distributing  electric  cur- 
rents to  all  sections  of  the  city,  furnishing  thousands  of 
lights  and  power  to  dwellings,  churches  and  other  classes  of 
buildings.  The  number  of  lights  supplied  by  these  respec- 
tive stations  vary  from  the  small  station  furnishing  2,000  to 
the  Edison,  which  furnishes  over  40,000  incandescent  lights 
and  current  for  a  large  number  of  motors." 

' '  All  of  the  different  systems  of  electric  lighting  invented 
are,  or  have  been,  given  every  opportunity  to  operate  their 
respective  apparatus  in  our  city."  Now,  in  view  of  this, 
significantly  comes  the  following:  "No  insurance  loss  oc- 
curred in  any  building  in  our  city  during  the  past  year,  from 
fire,  where  the  cause  could  be  in  any  way  attributed  to  elec- 
tric wires."  These  facts  are  sufficient  to  prove  our  point. 

POWER. 

The  question  of  power  is  vastly  more  important  than  the 
question  of  light.  L,ight  was  first  in  the  field,  and  conse- 
quently has  attracted  public  attention  to  a  greater  extent 
than  power,  electric  central  stations  being  built  with  almost 
entire  reference  to  it,  while  the  magnificent  possibilities  of 
electric  motor  power  were  overlooked.  The  telegraph,  tele- 
phone and  fire  alarm  systems  are  now  established  facts. 
Their  value  has  been  learned  and  parting  with  them  would 
not  be  considered. 

Rapid  transit  has  commanded  much  thought,  and  it  has 
been  said  that  here  electricity  will  win  its  greatest  victories. 
The  other  question,  dealing  with  the  electric  motor,  as  a  sta- 
tionary machine,  has  been  entirely  overshadowed  by  specula- 
tions in  this  direction.  The  reason  for  this  is  easily  discovered; 
there  are  to-day,  in  actual  operation,  in  the  United  States,  310 
electric  railways,  requiring  over  2,400  miles  of  track,  with 


American  Industries.  51 

4, ooo  cars  equipped  with  about  7,000  motors  which  represent 
no  less  than  175,000  horse  power  in  dynamos  and  motors.  As 
the  history  of  horse  and  cable  roads  dates  back  much  further 
than  the  electric  road,  it  is  also  interesting  to  compare  the  in- 
vestments of  capital  in  each  respective  system. 

Horse  railroads  represent  an  investment  of  about  $58,- 
000,000;  electric  railways  represent  over  $50,000,000,  and 
cable  roads  about  $49,000,000.  Already  then  the  electric 
railway  has  passed  the  experimental  stage.  The  size  of 
motors  for  purpose  of  transit  is  being  continually  enlarged 
as  the  success  of  their  use  becomes  more  and  more  appar- 
ent." Obstacles  that  but  a  few  3^ears  ago  appeared  insur- 
mountable are  now  removed,  it  being  found  that  motors  can 
be  built  to  handle  railroad  trains  at  railroad  speed,  and  that 
they  can  be  relied  upon  with  as  much  certainty  as  can  loco- 
motives. The  comparison  between  the  electrical  railway 
system  and  the  steam  elevated  railway  system  may  be  best 
treated  by  referring  to  some  representative  example.  For 
this,  the  Manhattan  railroad  of  New  York,  can  be  advan- 
tageously selected.  On  reasonable  estimate  it  is  calculated 
that  the  locomotive  consumes  435  pounds  of  coal  per  hour  ; 
to  furnish  electrically  the  same  power  250  pounds  of  coal  per 
hour  would  suffice. 

Based  upon  the  same  estimate,  the  difference  between  the 
figures  $700,000  per  year,  requisite  now  for  fuel,  and  the 
figures  $300,000  per  year,  the  cost  of  generating  the  power 
at  the  central  station  and  distributing  it  electrically,  repre- 
sents the  saving  possible  through  the  adoption  of  electricity. 
This  is  a  monetary  saving  only.  If  investigation  be  made 
regarding  the  saving  arising  from  the  freedom  from  damage 
by  the  noise,  smoke  and  dirt  necessary  to  a  locomotive,  of 
adjoining  property,  and  regarding  the  saving  effected  through 
the  possibility  of  running  lighter  trains  at  shorter  intervals, 
thus  more  evenly  distributing  the  load,  it  will  be  seen  that 
other  factors  have  been  unearthed  which  do  not  lack  impor- 
tance. Summing  up  all  considerations  on  each  side,  it  is 
extremely  probable  that  an  electric  railroad  could  be  built 
and  equipped  at  less  cost  than  if  the  proposed  motive  power 


52  The  Recent  Development  of 

were  steam.  Though  within  the  domains  of  electricity  yet 
there  is  a  social  side  to  this  problem  of  rapid  transit  at  once 
interesting  and  important.  The  necessary  amount  of  real 
estate  for  an  electric  plant  doing  this  kind  of  work  is  about 
one-fortieth  of  that  necessary  for  the  erection  of  horse  stables 
and  car  sheds,  high  buildings,  impossible  in  the  latter  case 
being  possible  in  the  former. 

Cleanliness  and  healthfulness  are  companions.  The  re- 
placing of  disease  breeding  horse  stables  and  car  sheds  by 
the  more  cleanly,  healthful  buildings  for  electric  service  is 
quite  a  gain  for  the  community.  Motor  cars  are  safe;  they 
do  not  explode;  they  scatter  no  dust  or  ashes;  they  are  pleasant 
to  ride  in  and  do  not  damage  the  paving;  they  enable  a  person 
to  live  farther  out  in  the  surrounding  country  and  yet  have 
his  business  in  the  city;  and,  finally,  through  their  rapid 
transit  they  open  up  districts  formerly  inaccessible. 

The  electric  road  stimulates  the  saving  of  capital  through 
better  opportunities  of  investment.  The  greater  economy  of 
electric  over  horse  railways  allows  the  construction  of  addi- 
tional roads,  which  would  not  be  given  a  thought  while 
horses  remained  the  motive  power.  Roads  not  paying  can 
be  put  upon  a  dividend  basis  and  a  reliable  class  of  new  in- 
vestments can  be  established. 

Capital  constantly  competes  for  the  best  classes  of  the 
various  sorts  of  stocks,  bonds,  etc.  Interest  tends  to  a 
minimum  through  the  accumulation  of  capital,  so  that  the 
earnings  on  these  stocks  and  bonds  have  been  reduced  to  an 
exceedingly  low  figure.  The  result  of  this  has  been  to  create 
trusts,  monopolies,  etc.,  which  represent  the  effort  of  capital 
artificially  to  obtain  its  usual  remuneration  in  newer  fields. 
Investment  in  electric  roads  is  safe.  These  roads  open  up, 
naturally,  a  new  sphere  for  such  investment,  and  because  of 
the  superior  economy  of  electrical  power  they  give  a  greater 
earning  capacity.  On  the  employees  themselves  the  effect 
of  the  electric  railroad  is  a  beneficial  one,  for  the  reason  that 
the  service  requires  skill  and  intelligence  rather  than  mere 
brute  strength.  It  employs  mind  as  well  as  body,  and  is  not 
an  unequal  strain  on  either. 


American  Industries.  53 

Stationary  motors,  for  manufacturing  purposes,  demand 
•attention.  Not  going  too  far  back  into  the  past,  water  is  dis- 
covered to  be  the  force  by  which  power  is  transmitted  and 
work  performed.  To  obtain  this  power,  mills  are  erected 
alongside  a  suitable  water  way,  houses  gather  about  them, 
and  soon  a  town  appears  which  in  time  becomes  an  indus- 
trial center.  This  localization  of  industry,  and  the  securing 
thus  of  industrial  supremacy  over  other  towns,  is  a  conse- 
quence coincident  to  the  nature  of  water  power,  which,  while 
being  the  cheapest  to  produce,  is  incapable  of  distribution 
except  for  very  small  areas. 

All  benefits  derived  are  concentrated  at  the  point  of  pro- 
duction. Limiting  then  the  advantages  arising  from  the  use 
of  water  power  is  the  fact  that  it  cannot  be  distributed  to  any 
great  extent.  The  capability  of  cheapness  in  distribution 
far  outweighs  in  importance  the  capability  of  cheapness  in 
production. 

Testing  steam  power  as  to  these  two  points,  it  is  found 
that  though  steam  costs  more  for  production,  yet  it  renders 
superior  benefits,  through  the  fact  that  it  can  be  produced  at 
numberless  places,  and  so  answers  to  a  certain  degree  the 
demands  of  distribution.  Still,  however,  it  must  be  said 
that,  similar  to  water  power,  no  distribution  of  steam  power 
has  been  obtained  except  for  small  areas  around  the  place  of 
production. 

A  manufacturing  establishment  is  thus  isolated.  It  has 
no  connection  with  other  establishments  of  like  character, 
-and  does  the  largest  part  of  its  work  within  its  own  four 
walls.  From  this  it  is  apparent  that  the  workmen  employed 
are  compelled  to  go  where  the  power  is.  The  indiscriminate 
massing  together  of  human  beings  gives  rise  to  a  large  part 
.of  the  evils  of  our  factory  system.  As  is.  natural,  objections 
can  be  urged  to  such  methods  of  manufacturing.  The  ne- 
cessity of  a  large  investment  of  capital  needs  a  wrord.  Sup- 
pose a  young  man,  not  blessed  with  riches,  has  been  able  to 
attend  a  school  of  technology,  there  learning  a  trade,  after 
this  he  has  hired  out  for  two  or  three  years  more,  and  has 
acquired  the  practical  side  of  his  chosen  work,  this  pro- 


54  The  Recent  Development  of 

bation  being  finished  he  is  ready  to  start  for  himself,  but 
capital  is  lacking.  Obviously  if  he  has  not  the  means  of 
putting  in  a  plant  of  his  own,  he  cannot  by  handwork  com- 
pete with  the  machine  work  of  others.  Competent  though 
he  is,  he  must  give  up  hope  of  himself  becoming  an  em- 
ployer and  turn  back  to  the  ranks  of  employees.  Such  a 
hindrance  cannot  but  be  hurtful. 

The  waste  of  power  should  be  touched  upon.  The  whole 
plant  of  a  factory  is  never  run  up  to  its  full  capacity.  There 
are  times  when  it  is  absolutely  necessary  that  some  of  the 
machines  should  remain  idle.  What  are  the  conditions  of 
this  stoppage  ?  The  belt,  transmitting  power,  is  slipped  off 
on  to  the  loose  pulley,  and  from  then  until  the  machine  is 
again  started  all  the  energy  expended  in  turning  the  shafting, 
belt  and  pulley  necessary  to  that  machine  is  entirely  wasted. 
Small  though  this  waste  may  be  in  any  one  case,  yet  when 
other  machines  are  added  it  becomes  an  important  factor  in 
the  cost  of  steam  power.  Minor  to  these  objections  there  are 
others  which  might  be  spoken  of,  such  as  the  space  requsite 
for  a  steam  plant,  the  cost  for  fuel,  the  risk  of  explosion,  the 
lacking  element  of  self-interest  and  others;  but  these  are 
readily  seen  and  need  no  special  pointing  out. 

It  is  not  known  what  limits  there  are  to  the  practical  dis- 
tribution of  electric  power.  Wherever  water,  wind  or  steam 
power  is  obtainable  it  can  be  produced.  The  fact  that  by  a 
simple  wire,  strung  from  one  end  of  the  city  to  the  other, 
cars  can  be  driven  at  a  high  rate  of  speed  is  proof  enough 
that  power  may  also  be  sent  along  that  or  any  other  wire  for 
many  other  purposes. 

This  fact  renders  possible  the  establishment  of  a  central 
power  station,  one  for  a  small  city,  and  in  a  larger  city  one 
for  about  every  fifty  or  sixty  thousand  inhabitants.  From 
this  station  can  be  sent  both  light  and  power.  With  such 
conditions  the  workman  is  no  longer  compelled  to  go  day 
after  day  to  the  factory,  but  is  enabled  to  have  a  work- 
shop of  his  own  where  power  is  gotten  directly  from  the 
wires  running  in  front  his  door. 

A  large  manufacturing  company  uses  the  system  of  piece 


American  Industries.  55 

work.  Small  buildings  are  all  that  are  required.  The  power 
is  divided  as  wanted,  in  such  quantities  as  wanted,  instead 
of  being  entirely  concentrated.  As  it  is  now,  a  company  can 
furnish  power  to  run  a  sewing  machine,  for  fifty  cents  per 
month,  and  profit  by  it,  and  power  to  the  extent  of  one-horse 
power  can  be  obtained  in  the  same  way  for  $10  per  month. 
If  this  system  were  universally  adopted  the  sewing  machine 
could  be  run  with  a  profit  for  twenty-five  cents  per  month,  and 
a  person  could  be  supplied  with  power  to  the  extent  of  one- 
horse  power  for  $8  or  even  $6  per  month.  Estimating  one- 
horse  power  to  be  equal  to  the  power  of  eight  men,  and  the 
services  of  one  man  to  be  worth  $50  per  month,  the  obtain- 
ing of  this  service  for  $8  per  month  constitutes  avast  saving. 
A  person  under  this  system  would  be  able  to  work  as  well  in 
the  suburbs  as  in  the  heart  of  the  city. 

As  a  contrast  to  steam,  it  is  found  that  a  large  investment 
of  capital  is  unnecessary,  and  that  there  is  no  waste  of  energy 
because  when  the  current  is  shut  off  from  any  wire  the 
cutting-off  is  complete,  and  no  energy  is  lost  in  useless  opera- 
tions. Allowance  is  made  for  the  fact  that  the  electric 
machine  is  seldom  or  never  worked  up  to  its  full  capacity. 
For  example,  take  a  building  with  500  lights  ;  it  is  not 
probable  that  all  these  lights  will  ever  be  in  use  at  the  same 
time,  calculating  upon  this  a  3Oo-light  dynamo  is  thought  to 
be  sufficient  for  the  lighting  of  all  lamps  ever  in  operation. 

Regarding  those  minor  obj  ections  touched  upon  in  relation 
to  steam,  very  little  thought  shows  that  none  of  them  can 
be  urged  in  this  connection.  If  common  sense  rules,  this 
valuable  application  of  electricity  in  the  economic  life  of  the 
people  is  feasible. 

W.  S.  OUTERBRIDGE,  JR. 


56  The  Recent  Development  of 


CHAPTER  VII. 
THE  SUGAR  INDUSTRY. 

Sugar  has  been  a  product  of  continually  increasing  import- 
ance, as  its  consumption  has  been  a  continually  increasing 
phenomenon.  The  taste  for  sugar  is  universal,  and  its 
increasing  supply  has  enabled  even  the  poorest  persons  to 
have  plenty. 

In  the  past,  sugar  has  been  so  costly  that  it  has  been 
ranked  as  a  luxury,  and  is  still  so  regarded  by  many  persons. 
The  reduction  in  its  cost  deserves  especial  attention  now, 
because  the  change  in  its  value  has  been  so  recent.  Its 
price  is  now  so  reduced  that  the  cost  of  a  pound  of  sugar  is 
but  little  more  than  that  of  a  pound  of  flour.  While  it  has 
steadily  been  declining  until  now,  sugar  men  agree  that  it 
has  reached  rock  bottom,  and  will  not  go  any  lower.  It  is 
indeed  impossible  that  its  price  will  decline  in  the  future 
anything  like  it  has  in  the  past.  The  sugar  industry  is 
carried  on  for  small  margin  of  profits.  The  retailer  expects 
no  profit  from  sugar ;  he  keeps  it  as  an  accommodation  to 
his  customers.  But  a  few  days  ago  a  conference  of  the 
Boston,  New  York  and  Philadelphia  jobbers  was  held  to  see 
if  they  could  adopt  a  plan  by  which  the  retailer  would  have 
some  profit  from  his  sales.  It  is  only  because  refining  is 
carried  on  in  such  a  large  scale  that  it  pays. 

The  consumption  of  sugar  in  the  United  States  is  fifty-four 
pounds  per  capita  a  year.  In  England  it  is  somewhat  larger, 
reaching  nearly  sixty  pounds.  The  total  consumption  in  the 
United  States  in  round  figures  is  2,500,000,000  pounds ;  of 
this  our  domestic  product  amounts  to  about  only  ten  per 
cent.  Our  domestic  product  is  almost  all  derived  from  the 
cane,  and  is  practically  all  grown  in  Louisiana.  The  product 
of  other  districts  all  told  is  not  greater  than  15,000,000 
pounds  a  year. 

Probably  no  industry  in  this  country  has  suffered  such 


American  Industries.  57 

vicissitudes  as  that  of  making  sugar  from  cane.  The  causes 
of  these  vicissitudes  are :  first,  the  absolute  dependence 
of  the  industry  upon  a  protective  tariff;  and  second,  the  fact 
that  the  total  product  of  cane  sugar  in  the  United  States 
is  but  a  small  part  of  the  aggregate  sugar  produced  in  the 
world.  Thus,  while  subject  to  all  fluctuations  of  foreign 
markets,  this  product  exercised  no  appreciable  effect  in  de- 
termining prices.  Our  planter  can  look  for  no  compensation 
for  a  short  crop  in  higher  prices. 

In  1884  arose  a  new  menace  to  the  troubled  industry. 
The  German  Government  stimulated  the  production  of  beet- 
sugar  by  a  law,  which  in  effect  gave  a  large  bounty  on  all 
sugar  exported.  An  enormous  out-put  of  the  German  pro- 
duct resulted.  A  very  large  part  of  this  increased  production 
was  thrown  upon  the  American  market.  The  price  of  sugar 
fell  so  low  that  the  Louisiana  planter,  even  with  the  2^  cents 
•duty  in  his  favor,  could  not  save  himself  from  actual  loss  on 
his  crop.  Many,  even  of  the  Cuban  planters,  were  ruined. 

Notwithstanding  the  progress  that  has  been  made  in  Europe 
in  the  culture  of  the  sugar-beet  and  the  manufacture  of  beet- 
root sugar  and  the  immensity  and  value  of  the  industry  it 
has  supplied  to  European  nations,  the  knowledge  and  ex- 
perience resulting  have  not  been  applied  in  such  a  way  in  the 
United  States  as  to  make  the  production  of  sugar  from  this 
source  a  matter  of  any  commercial  or  industrial  importance, 
although  attempts  at  the  introduction  of  the  industry  have 
not  been  wanting.  The  beet-sugar  industry  in  America  may 
be  said  to  have  closed  its  first  era  several  years  ago,  and  the 
results,  from  a  financial  standpoint,  may  be  summed  up  in  one 
phrase,  complete  failure.  The  second  era  of  the  industry  can 
be  said  to  have  begun  with  the  reorganization  of  the  Alvarado 
factory  upon  a  sound  basis  in  1888,  and  the  building  of 
Spreckel's  factory  at  Watsoriville,  California.  The  Western 
Beet-Sugar  factory  at  Watsonville  has  been  in  operation  three 
years  and  apparently  with  favorable  results.  Data  for  the 
season  1888-89  show  a  production  of  3,280,000  pounds  of 
.sugar  at  a  cost  of  4.04  cents  a  pound,  delivered  free  on  board 
in  San  Francisco. 


58  The  Recent  Development  of 

Experiments  in  the  growing  of  sugar-beets  in  the  United 
States  have  not  been  wanting.  Their  culture  in  California 
has  been  successful  and  the  soil  and  climate  seem  peculiarly 
adapted  for  their  growth.  The  Rural  Calif ornian  for  October, 
1889,  says  that  the  beet  does  well  in  that  State,  its  sugar- 
bearing  qualities  being  above  those  of  the  European  growth, 
but  on  account  of  lack  of  sugar  factories  the  grower  is  unable 
to  dispose  of  his  product.  In  Kansas  and  Nebraska  the 
experiments  have  also  met  with  great  success.  In  other 
States  it  has  been  demonstrated  that  beets  containing  a  large 
percentage  of  saccharine  matter  can  be  produced. 

The  shape  of  the  sugar-beet  has  much  to  do  with  its  value 
as  a  sugar-producing  plant.  A  smooth  and  symmetrical  ex- 
terior permits  it  to  be  easily  harvested  and  washed.  An  ir- 
regularly shaped  beet  may  easily  carry  into  the  cutters  sand 
and  earth,  and  even  stones  of  considerable  size,  quickly  dull- 
ing and  even  breaking  the  knives  of  the  slicing  machine.  In 
selecting  mothers,  therefore,  only  beets  of  smooth  and  sym- 
metrical exteriors  are  chosen.  There  is  thus  a  tendency  to 
establish  a  typical  form,  which  varies  with  the  variety  of 
beet. 

The  process  of  the  manufacture  of  sugar  from  the  sugar- 
beet  is  no  longer  an  experiment  but  a  positive  method,  from 
which  with  beets  of  a  given  richness,  a  definite  output  of 
sugar  can  be  calculated.  The  general  process  of  manufacture 
consists,  first,  in  extracting  the  juices  from  the  beet  or  cane. 
This  is  now  mostly  accomplished  by  means  of  diffusion,  the 
old  pressure  process  being  done  away  with.  The  juice  is 
then  filtered  and  evaporated.  From  this  product  the  molasses 
is  separated  from  the  sugar  by  means  of  centrifugals.  In  re- 
fining all  the  impurities  are  entirely  removed. 

The  results  obtained  in  attempting  to  make  sugar  from 
sorghum  are  not  of  an  encouraging  character.  It  is  of  the 
greatest  importance  in  the  cultivation  of  sorghum  that  the 
best  conditions  of  soil  and  climate  are  obtained.  In  the  light 
of  present  experience  it  must  be  conceded  that  a  soil  and 
climate  similar  to  those  of  Southern  Central  Kansas  are  best 
suited  to  the  culture  of  sorghum  for  sugar  making  purposes. 


American  Industries.  59 

Further  investigation  may  show  that  Texas  and  Louisiana 
present  equally  as  favorable  conditions.  Conditions  approxi- 
mately similar  to  those  mentioned  can  doubtless  be  found  in 
Arkansas,  Tennessee,  North  Carolina,  and  other  localities. 
The  expectations  that  were  entertained  and  positively  advo- 
cated a  few  years  ago  of  the  establishment  of  a  successful  sor- 
ghum industry  in  the  great  maize  fields  of  the  country  must 
now  be  definitely  abandoned.  The  raw  sugar  obtained  from 
sorghum  is  not  up  to  the  standard  of  that  obtained  from  cane 
and  beet. 

The  process  of  refining  sugar  from  what  ever  source  ob- 
tained is  the  same.  Nearly  all  of  the  sugar  consumed  is 
refined,  but  some  little  is  used  in  the  raw  state.  The  con- 
sumption of  the  finer  grades  is  increasing.  The  time  was 
when  the  sugar  brought  to  market  was  an  ugly  brown,  damp 
mass  which  would  harden  into  large  lumps  and  had  to  be 
dug  out  of  the  barrel.  Now  it  is  a  pure  white  crystallized 
and  easily  handled  commodity.  The  largest  amount  of 
sugar  is  consumed  in  the  granulated  form.  Granulated  sugar 
is  all  of  one  grade  but  may  differ  in  the  size  of  the  crystals. 
There  are  two  sizes — the  fine,  or  fruit  sugar,  which  is  ob- 
tained by  screening  the  whole;  that  which  remains  is  the 
regular  granulated.  A  great  deal  of  pulverized  sugar,  is 
used.  A  very  fine  grade  of  it,  called  confectioners'  sugar  is 
used  largely  in  making  confectionery.  They  also  use  some 
cheaper  grades  of  brown  sugar  which  often  contains  glucose. 
Glucose  is  used  in  adulterating  sugars.  It  is  not  hurtful  but 
is  weak  in  saccharine  matter  and  may  be  detected  by  a  close 
examination.  Sugar  made  from  beets  contains  less  saccharine 
matter  than  that  made  from  cane,  and  has  also  a  disagree- 
able odor.  It  is  often  mixed  with  cane  sugar  in  considerable 
quantity. 

Raw  sugar  should  never  be  used  for  dietectic  or  domestic 
purposes;  because  it  contains  organic  impurities;  and  more 
especially  as  immense  numbers  of  disgusting  looking  in- 
sects, termed  the  "Sugar  Insect"  are  invariably  found 
in  raw  and  unrefined  sugar.  No  one,  indeed,  who  has  seen 
the  filth  and  gross  impurities  extracted  from  the  raw  sugar 


60  The  Recent  Development  of 

in  a  refinery  could  ever  after  use  anything  by  the  refined 
article.  Pure  sugar  is,  indeed,  almost  as  desirable  an  article 
of  food  as  pure  water.  The  finest  qualities  of  raw  sugar  do 
invariably  contain  very  gross  impurities;  but  the  cheapest 
kind  of  refined  sugar  is  perfectly  pure  and  wholesome  in 
every  respect. 

The  refineries  of  the  United  States  are  located  in  New 
York,  Brooklyn,  Boston,  Philadelphia,  New  Orleans  and 
San  Francisco.  A  new  refinery  has  just  been  erected  in 
Baltimore  and  one  in  St.  Louis  is  not  running.  The  refin- 
eries are  mostly  along  the  Atlantic  sea  board,  and  lor  several 
reasons,  the  most  important  of  which  is  the  proximity  to  the 
consumer.  Fuel  and  machinery  can  also  be  obtained  here 
at  the  lowest  price.  Another  reason  is  the  fact  of  having 
water  communication  with  the  sugar  producing  countries. 
Most  of  the  raw  sugar  comes  from  the  West  Indies  and 
Brazil,  packed  in  large  hogsheads.  Some  raw  beet-sugar 
from  Germany  is  also  refined.  We  import  no  sugar  already 
refined,  but  export  some  of  our  refined  product,  mostly  to 
England.  The  German  and  American  refiners  have  almost 
entirely  driven  England  from  the  market  in  refining. 

Whether  the  United  States  will  ever  be  able  to  supply 
itself  with  sugar  is  a  question  of  the  future.  It  seems  not  at 
all  unlikely.  There  is  no  reason  why  we  cannot  build  up 
the  beet-sugar  industry  to  the  proportions  which  Germany 
has.  The  policy  of  Bismark  in  this  direction  was  very 
wise.  When  the  German  wheat-grower  was  driven  from 
his  own  market  by  the  competition  of  Russian  and  American 
wheat,  he  cast  about  for  another  resource.  The  taxing  of 
beets  which  entered  the  factory,  and  giving  a  rebate  on  all 
sugar  exported,  gained  at  the  same  time  several  objects.  It 
induced  the  manufacturer  to  use  only  those  beets  yielding 
a  large  sugar  return,  and  led  to  the  development  of  the  better 
varieties.  The  greater  the  product  of  sugar  from  the  beets 
the  larger  the  rebate  in  proportion,  which  practically  amount- 
ed to  a  bounty  on  the  exported  article. 

The  increase  in  the  production  of  sugar  is  entirely  from 
the  beet.  The  product  of  the  world  is  divided  between  cane 


American  Industries.  61 

and  beet,  and  while  the  product  from  the  former  has  remained 
stationary  or  even  decreased  in  the  last  ten  years  the  growth 
of  the  latter  has  been  continuous.  In  1884  the  product  from 
cane  was  2,323,000  tons,  that  from  beet  2,361,000  tons.  In 
1890  the  product  from  cane  was  2,278,000  tons,  that  from 
beet,  3,500,000;  showing  a  small  decrease  in  cane  and  a 
large  increase  in  beet. 

Very  comprehensive  statistics  of  the  sugar  refining  busi- 
ness are  ifiven  by  Willett  &  Gray,  sugar  statisticians,  of  New 
York.  Of  the  total  refining  in  the  United  States  two-thirds 
is  done  by  "The  American  Sugar  Refining  Company," 
known  as  the  Sugar  Trust.  The  American  Sugar  Refining 
Company  was  regularly  organized  on  January  12,  1891, 
under  the  laws  of  the  State  of  New  Jersey,  with  a  capital  of 
$25,000,000  preferred  stock,  bearing  seven  per  cent,  cumu- 
lative interest,  but  having  no  further  claim  to  division  of 
profits,  and  $25,000,000  of  common  stock,  entitled  to  such 
dividends  as  may  be  declared  from  time  to  time.  This  com- 
pany took  the  place  of  "The  Sugar  Refineries  Company," 
(Sugar  Trust)  which  was  declared  illegal  by  the  State  of 
New  York.  The  trust  controls  twenty  refineries,  having  a 
total  capacity  of  34,000  barrels  daily,  including  all  of  the  New 
York  and  four  Boston  refineries  and  one  each  in  Portland, 
St.  Louis,  New  Orleans  and  San  Francisco.  The  other 
refineries,  not  in  the  trust,  are  the  four  in  Philadelphia,  and 
one  each  in  Boston,  San  Francisco  and  Baltimore,  having  a 
daily  capacity  of  15,400  barrels. 

In  1888  and  1889  the  profit  for  refining  was  five-eights  of 
a  cent  per  pound  or  fourteen  dollars  per  ton,  and  the  total 
profit  to  trust  and  nontrust  $19,000,000;  but  in  1890  the 
profit  fell  to  .144  cents  per  pound  or  $3  23  per  ton,  and  the 
total  profits  were  $4,650,000.  During  the  three  years  from 
1888  to  1890  inclusive,  the  trust  paid  dividends  of  ten  per 
cent.  It  earned  in  1888  about  twenty-eight  percent.,  but 
in  1890  only  seven  per  cent.,  leaving  a  deficiency  to  be  paid 
out  of  capital. 

Willet  &  Gray  estimate  that  the  total  amount  of  raw 
sugar  refined  this  year  will  exceed  that  of  last  year  by  12^ 


62  The  Recent  Development  of 

per  cent,  making  1,620,000  tons.  They  say  that  the  policy 
of  close  competition,  which  was  adopted  from  choice  in  1890,' 
must  be  the  policy  of  the  American  Sugar  Refining  Company 
in  1891  from  necessity,  for  the  tariff  which  comes  into  force 
on  April  ist,  1891,  will  afford  but  three-eights  cents  per 
pound  protection  to  American  refiners,  and  may  prove  to 
give  even  less  if  the  country  takes  kindly  to  the  use  of  foreign 
refined  sugar.  ^ 

This  year,  1 89 1 ,  is  also  to  be  noted  by  a  special  continued  ad- 
vance in  raw  sugar  all  over  the  world,  growing  out  of  the  facts 
that  the  beet  crop  is  proving  to  be  no  larger  than  last  year's  and 
that  the  cane  crops  of  the  world  are  partial  failures,  with  the 
single  exception  of  Cuba,  thereby  giving  an  inadequate  supply 
of  sugar  for  the  increased  demand  for  consumption,  not  only  in 
the  United  States,  but  in  Europe  as  well.  Our  free  tariff  is 
to  be  made  by  producers  of  sugar  everywhere  the  cause  and 
excuse  for  making  us  pay  serious  advances  for  raw  sugar  in 
1891,  whatever  may  follow  later  on  from  a  probable  increase 
of  production  for  another  year.  The  total  profits  of  refiners 
this  year  will  require  to  be  estimated  from  their  purchases  of 
raw  sugar,  rather  than  from  the  current  market  prices  of  raw 
and  refined  at  time  of  refining  the  sugar.  The  latter  may, 
and  probably  will,  at  times  show  less  than  a  refining  profit. 

GEORGE  HUGHES  SMITH. 


American  Industries.  63 


CHAPTER  VIII. 
THE  FELT  INDUSTRY. 

Felt  is  defined  as  a  stuff  composed  of  wool,  fur  or  hair,  of 
which  the  fibres  are  so  entangled  and  interlaced  that  they 
cannot  readily  be  separated,  this  being  done  without  spin- 
ning or  weaving.  There  is  a  tradition  that  felt  was  discovered 
by  Saint  Clement  while  on  a  pilgrimage.  Having  put  a  bat 
of  carded  wool  into  each  shoe  to  save  his  feet  from  blistering, 
he  found  at  his  journey's  end  that  moisture  and  friction  had 
converted  the  wool  into  felt.  It  was  a  common  material  for 
caps,  hosiery,  floor-cloths,  tents  and  cloaks,  having  long  since 
been  used  for  this  purpose  in  the  East,  where  the  nomads 
of  the  desert  largely  occupy  tents  of  felt. 

At~present  it  is  largely  made  from  waste  wool,  which  is 
first  deprived  ot  its  oil,  then  carded  and  placed  in  a  machine, 
where  it  is  kept  wet  with  hot  water  and  subjected  to  a  pro- 
cess of  beating,  by  which  the  fibres  are  made  to  move  upon 
each  other  until  the  interlocking  of  their  serrations  and  the 
curling  of  the  fibre  itself,  unite  the  whole  into  a  compact 
sheet  of  felt.  The  "fulling  "  of  cloth  is  but  a  partial  felting 
of  wool  already  woven .  This  felted  wool  is  used  for  carpets 
(often  beautifully  printed),  carpet-covers,  coarse  hats,  car- 
riage linings,  pads  in  saddlery,  shoulder  pads  for  men's  cloth- 
ing, slippers  and  shoes,  and  even  for  cloaks  and  other  gar- 
ments. The  cheapest  woolen  rags  and  similar  articles  are 
worked  into  felt  for  covering  steam  boilers,  being  used  before 
the  introduction  of  asbestos  for  that  purpose  more  than  at 
present.  They  are  both  excellent  non-conductors  and 
greatly  diminish  the  waste  of  heat.  Roofing  felt  is  a  coarse 
kind  usually  coated  and  filled  with  coal  tar,  and  sometimes 
with  tar  and  powdered  slate.  Felt  stiffened  with  dextrine  is 
used  for  making  surgeons'  splints. 

By  far  the  most  important  use  to  which  felt  is  put  is  that 


64  The  Recent  Development  of 

of  making  hats.  In  colonial  times  hat  making  was  encour- 
aged by  bounties  and  premiums,  with  such  effect  that  the 
company  of  feltmakers  in  L,ondon  petitioned  Parliament, 
to  prohibit  the  exportation  of  hats  from  the  American 
Colonies,  representing  that  ( '  foreign  markets  were  almost 
altogether  supplied  from  thence,  and  not  a  few  sent  to  Great 
Britain."  It  was  true,  for  New  England  and  New  York 
manufactured  ten  thousand  yearly.  In  Boston  there  were 
sixteen  hatters  one  of  whom  was  stated  to  have  commonly 
finished  forty  hats  a  week.  It  is  well-known  how  England 
wished  to  suppress  colonial  manufactures  and  especially  that 
of  hats.  However,  this  industry  survived,  even  under  English 
pressure,  by  evading  the  laws.  Felts  were  made  in  larger 
quantities,  much  of  the  business  being  carried  on  in  interior 
towns,  where  wool  was  cheap  and  the  manufacture  less  ex- 
posed to  bfficial  scrutiny  than  at  the  seaports. 

The  manufacture  of  hats  was  an  early  and  a  very  consider- 
able department  of  the  woolen  manufacture.  Nearly  every 
State  in  the  Union  was  engaged  in  the  business,  and  in  some 
of  them  there  was  scarcely  a  town  in  which  they  were  not 
made.  There  were  manufactured,  as  ascertained  by  a  report 
to  the  Manufacturing  Society  of  Philadelphia,  over  one 
hundred  and  sixty  thousand  wool  and  upward  of  fifty-four 
thousand  fur  hats  annually  in  Pennsylvania.  In  fact,  by 
the  census  reports  we  find  hats  to  be  manufactured  in  those 
towns  where  wool  is  used  in  making  cloths  and  carpets, 
because  the  waste  can  be  utilized.  It  is,  however,  a  some- 
what surprising  incident  to  find  no  felt  manufactories  in 
Philadelphia.  New  York  has  an  entire  town,  Dolgesville, 
devoted  to  the  manufacture  of  felt  goods,  such  as  floor  cloths. 

Having  taken  an  historical  review  and  found  the  geo- 
graphical distribution  and  causes  for  it,  let  us  now  examine 
into  the  manner  of  felt  hat  making  at  the  present  day. 
Technically  these  hats  are  of  three  different  kinds,  known  as 
plain  soft,  plain  hard,  and  "  napped  "  or  "  ruffed  "  felts.  The 
quality  of  felt  hats  ranges  over  a  great  extent,  fur  composing 
the  entire  body  in  the  finer  and  more  expensive  qualities. 
For  commoner  qualities  a  mixture  of  fur  and  Saxony  wool 


American  Industries.  65 

is  used,  and  for  the  lowest  kinds  wool  alone  is  employed. 
The  processes  and  apparatus  necessary  for  making  hats  of 
fur  differ  from  those  required  in  the  case  of  woolen  bodies.  In 
large  manufactories  machinery  is  generally  employed  for 
operations  which  at  no  distant  date  were  entirely  manual. 
In  the  smaller  factories,  and  for  special  purposes  the  old  hand 
processes  are  still  employed. 

The  fur  used  by  hatters  consists  principally  of  the  hair  of 
rabbits  (technically  called  coneys)  and  hares,  with  some 
proportion  of  nutria,  musquash  and  beaver  hair  ;  and  gen- 
erally any  parings  and  cuttings  from  furriers.  Furs  intended 
for  felting  are  deprived  of  their  long,  coarse  hairs,  after 
which  they  are  treated  with  a  solution  of  nitrate  of  mercury, 
an  operation  called  carroting  or  "secretage,"  which  greatly  in- 
creases the  felting  properties  of  the  fur.  The  fur  is  then  cut  by 
hand  or  machine  from  the  skin,  and  in  this  state  it  is  de- 
livered to  the  hat  maker.  Rabbit  fur  for  hat-making  now 
comes  in  large  quantities  from  Australia,  and  it  is  also  largely 
collected  in  the  United  Kingdom  and  in  Northern  Europe. 
Great  Britain  exports  a  considerable  amount  of  rabbit  fur 
to  the  United  States. 

By  the  old  process,  the  body  or  foundation  was  made  of 
rabbit  fur,  and  the  nap  of  beaver  fur.  The  heap  of  fur 
is  struck  with  a  bowstring  until  it  falls  into  an  even 
layer,  and  is  felted  by  working  it  with  the  hands  in  a 
soapy  liquid,  although  machinery  is  sometimes  used  for  this 
purpose.  From  this  the  bat  is  made  by  working  it  with  hot 
water  which  causes  it  to  shrink.  This  process  is  continued 
until  the  body  be  shrunk  sufficiently  and  thoroughly  equal- 
ized. When  quite  dry,  stiffening  is  performed  with  a  brush 
dipped  into  a  thin  varnish  of  shellac,  and  rubbed  into  the 
body.  The  surface  intended  for  the  inside  has  much  more 
laid  on  it  than  the  outer,  while  the  brim  is  made  to  absorb 
many  times  the  quantity  applied  to  any  other  part. 

On  being  dried  again,  the  body  is  ready  to  be  covered 
with  a  nap  of  beaver  hair.  The  hair  of  the  otter,  nutria,  or 
other  fur  is  sometimes  substituted,  in  inferior  qualities,  for 
beaver  hair.  The  requisite  quantity  of  one  of  these  kinds  of 


66  The  Recent  Development  of 

hair  is  taken  and  mixed  with  a  proportion  of  cotton,  and 
the  whole  is  bowed  up  into  a  thin  uniform  lap.  The  cotton 
merely  serves  to  give  sufficient  body  to  the  material  to 
enable  the  workman  to  handle  the  lap.  The  body  of  the  hat 
being  dampened,  the  workman  spreads  over  it  a  covering  of 
this  lap,  and  by  moistening  and  gentle  patting  with  a  brush 
the  cut  ends  of  the  hair  penetrate  and  fix  themselves  in  the 
felt  body.  The  hat  is  now  put  into  a  coarse  hair  cloth  and 
dipped  and  rolled  in  the  hot  liquor  until  the  fur  is  quite 
worked  in,  the  cotton  being  left  on  the  surface  loose  and 
ready  for  removal.  In  case  of  beaver  hats  the  blocking, 
dyeing,  and  finishing  processes  are  similar  to  those  employed 
for  ordinary  felts,  except  that  greater  care  and  dexterity 
are  required  on  the  part  of  the  workmen,  and  that  the 
coarse  hair  or  kemps,  which  may  be  in  the  fur,  are  cut 
off  by  shaving  the  surface  with  a  razor.  The  nap  must  be 
laid  in  one  direction,  smoothed  and  rendered  glossy  by  re- 
peated wettings,  ironings  and  brushings.  A  hat  so  finished 
is  very  durable,  and  it  is  much  more  light,  cool,  and  easy 
fitting  to  the  head  than  the  silk  hat  which  has  now  been  so 
largely  introduced.  All  attempts  to  apply  machinery  to  the 
principal  processes  in  felt  hat  making  resulted  in  failure, 
until  a  comparatively  recent  date. 

As  is  the  case  with  many  other  labor-saving  appliances  of 
recent  introduction,  the  first  efficient  machinery  for  felt  hat 
making  was  devised  in  America,  and  from  the  United  States 
the  machine  processes  were  introduced  into  England  about 
the  year  1858,  and  now  in  all  large  establishments  machinery 
is  employed. 

For  the  forming  of  hat  bodies  two  kinds  of  machines  are 
used,  according  as  the  material  employed  is  fur  or  wool.  In 
the  case  of  fur,  the  essential  portion  of  the  apparatus  used 
consists  of  a  cone  of  copper  of  the  size  and  form  of  the  body 
or  bat  to  be  made,  perforated  all  over  with  small  holes.  The 
cone  is  made  to  revolve  on  its  axis  slowly  over  an  orifice 
under  which  there  is  a  powerful  fan,  which  maintains  a 
strong  inward  draught  of  air  through  the  holes  in  the  cone. 
At  the  side  of  the  cone,  and  with  an  opening  towards  it,  is 


American  Industries.  67 

a  trunk  or  box  from  which  the  fur  to  be  made  into  a  hat  is 
thrown  out  by  rapid  revolution  of  a  brush-like  cylinder,  and 
as  the  cloud  of  separate  hair  is  expelled  from  the  trunk,  the 
current  of  air  being  sucked  through  the  cone  carries  the 
fibres  to  it  and  causes  them  to  cling  closely  to  its  surface. 
Thus  a  coating  of  loose  fibres  is  accumulated  on  the  copper 
cone,  and  these  are  kept  in  position  only  by  the  exhaust  at 
work  under  it.  When  sufficient  for  a  hat  body  has  been  de- 
posited, a  wet  cloth  is  wrapped  around  it,  over  which  an 
outer  cone  is  slipped  and  the  whole  is  removed  for  felting, 
while  another  copper  cone  is  placed  in  position  for  con- 
tinuing the  work.  The  felting  of  fur  bodies  is  principally 
clone  by  hand  labor,  although  machinery  has  recently  been 
introduced  by  which  it  is  partly  done. 

The  bat  or  body  of  wool  hats  is  prepared  by  first  carding  in 
a  modified  form  of  the  carding  machine.  The  wool  is  divided 
into  two  separate  slivers  as  delivered  from  the  cards,  and 
these  are  wound  simultaneously  on  a  double  conical  block  of 
wood  mounted  and  geared  to  revolve  slowly  with  a  reciprocat- 
ing horizontal  motion,  so  that  there  is  a  continual  crossing  and 
rercossing  of  the  wool  as  the  sliver  is  wound  around  the  cone. 
This  diagonal  arrangement  of  the  sliver  is  an  essential  feature 
in  the  apparatus,  as  thereby  the  strength  of  the  finished  felt 
is  made  equal  in  every  direction,  and  when  strained  in  the 
blocking  the  texture  yields  in  a  uniform  manner  without 
rupture.  The  wool  wound  on  the  double  block  forms  the 
material  of  two  hats,  which  are  separated  by  cutting  around 
the  median  or  base  line,  and  slipping  each  half  off  at  its  own 
end.  Into  each  cone  of  wool  or  bat  an  "inlayer"  is  now 
placed  to  prevent  the  inside  from  matting,  after  which  they 
are  folded  in  cloths,  and  placed  over  a  perforated  iron  plate 
through  which  steam  is  blown.  When  well  moistened  and 
heated,  they  are  placed  between  boards,  and  subjected  to  a 
rubbing  action  sufficient  to  harden  them  for  bearing  the  sub- 
sequent strong  planking  or  felting  operation.  The  planking 
of  wool  hats  is  generally  done  by  a  machine,  in  some  cases  a 
form  of  the  fulling  mill  being  used;  but  in  all  forms  the 
agency  is  heat,  moisture,  pressure,  rubbing  and  turning. 


68  The  Recent  Development  of 

When  by  thorough  felting  the  hat  bodies  of  any  kind  have 
been  reduced  to  dense  leathery  cones  about  one-half  the  size 
of  the  original  bat,  they  are  dried,  and  if  hard  felts  are  to  be 
made,  the  bodies  are  at  this  stage  hardened  or  stiffened  with 
a  varnish  of  shellac.  Next  follows  the  operation  of  blocking, 
in  which  the  felt  for  the  first  time  assumes  approximately 
the  form  it  is  ultimately  to  possess.  For  this  purpose  the 
conical  body  is  softened  in  boiling  water,  and  forcibly  drawn 
over  a  hat-shaped  wooden  block.  A  string  is  passed  round 
where  the  band  is  to  be  placed,  and  the  brim  is  then  flat- 
tened out  from  the  string.  Next  follows  the  dyeing  of  the 
hat  in  a  bath  of  suitable  dyeing  materials,  according  to  the 
color  desired.  In  dealing  with  fine  hats,  each  hat  is  sepa- 
rately dyed  while  on  the  block,  but  with  commoner  qualities 
it  is  the  practice  to  dye  before  blocking.  The  finishing  pro- 
cesses include  shaping  on  a  block,  over  which  the  crown  and 
brim  receive  accurately  their  ultimate  form,  and  pouncing 
or  pumicing,  which  consists  of  smoothing  the  whole  surface 
with  emery  or  glass  paper  while  the  hat  is  still  stretched  on 
the  block.  The  trimmer  finally  binds  the  outer  brim  and 
inserts  the  lining,  after  which  the  brim  may  get  more  or  less 
of  a  curl  or  turn  over  according  to  prevailing  fashion. 
Machines  for  blocking  and  pouncing  have,  to  some  extent, 
been  introduced. 

DAVID  MANDEL,  JR. 


American  Industries.  69 


CHAPTER  IX. 
THE  CANNING  INDUSTRY. 

The  process  of  canning  forms  one  of  the  most  important 
industrial  discoveries  of  our  century.  It  preserves  the  flavor 
and  nutritious  qualities  of  the  edible  fibre  from  decomposi- 
tion, and  enables  man  to  keep  for  years  what  in  the  course 
of  nature  would  go  to  decay  in  the  space  of  a  few  days.  Thus 
the  perishable  becomes  practically  imperishable,  and  the 
fruits  of  the  temperate  zone  can  be  enjoyed  in  their  delicious 
juices  amidst  the  ice  of  the  Arctic  regions  or  on  the  sands  of 
Sahara. 

The  art  of  hermetically  sealing  goods  was  discovered  by 
Francois  Appert,  about  1809,  and  from  that  time  to  this 
there  has  been  no  improvement  in  the  processes.  The  same 
method  used  in  the  early  history  of  the  industry  is  that  in 
use  to-day,  but  the  application  of  the  principle  to  all  classes 
of  food  has  been  largely  extended.  Almost  every  variety  of 
fruit,  vegetable,  fish  and  meat  is  now  put  up.  Course  din- 
ners may  be  served  from  canned  goods  alone. 

The  principle  of  canning  or  hermetically  sealing  of  fruits, 
vegetables,  meats  and  other  products  is  simply  to  exhaust 
the  air  from  the  articles  canned  and  hold  them  in  this  nearly 
vacuum  condition  until  used.  Were  it  possible  to  obtain  a 
complete  vacuum  in  the  vessel,  in  which  the  fruit  is  con- 
tained, it  would  be  possible  to  hold  the  article  canned  in  a 
much  more  original  condition  than  can  now  be  done.  Many 
experiments  have  been  made  and  machinery  produced  to  ex- 
haust the  air  from  the  vessel.  Complete  success  has  not  yet 
been  obtained  because  the  air  contained  in  the  fruit  cells  is 
sufficient  of  itself  to  create  the  gases,  which,  when  generated, 
produce  in  a  short  time  fermentation,  and  thus  cause  the  de- 
struction of  the  product.  It  is  possible  that  an  antiseptic  or 
acid  might  be  used  in  connection  with  the  vacuum  obtained 
by  the  air  pump  to  overcome  for  a  time  this  fermentation; 


70  The  Recent  Development  of 

but,  under  the  best  known  influences  now  at  work  the  result 
would  be  doubtful  and  the  perfect  life  of  the  product  must 
be  limited. 

The  chief  condition  to  be  complied  with  in  the  preservation 
of  articles  is  to  remove  them  completely  from  the  action  of 
the  air  without  the  can  and  the  air  within.  This  is  done  by 
means  of  air-tight  vessels.  The  air  without  is  the  primary 
agent  of  destruction,  and  on  the  success  of  treatment  of 
this  element  depends  the  condition  of  the  product  canned, 
and  the  success  of  the  enterprise. 

Let  us  examine  very  briefly  the  history  of  canning  within 
our  own  country.  In  1838,  Thomas  B.  Smith  packed  some 
tomatoes  in  Philadelphia,  while  before  this  in  1824  and 
1825  Thomas  Kensett  put  up  canned  goods  in  this  coun- 
try. In  1846  Isaac  Winslow  packed,  in  Briscom  street, 
Philadelphia,  tomatoes  in  glass  and  corn  in  tin.  In  1847  H. 
W.  Crosby  put  up  canned  tomatoes.  In  the  next  year  1848 
he  sent  six  cans  to  Queen  Victoria,  and  six  to  the  then 
President  of  the  United  States.  In  1845  some  experiments 
in  preserving  tomatoes  were  carried  on  at  Gettysburg  College, 
by  Professor  Jacobs,  but  nothing  in  the  way  of  introducing 
them  largely  was  done  until  1849,  when  the  California  ex- 
citement broke  out.  This  created  a  demand  for  goods  put  up 
in  a  way  to  last  during  the  long  voyage  around  Cape  Horn,  and 
the  trip  across  the  plains,  and  to  afford  the  miners  a  variety  of 
food.  The  canned  product  has  been  a  great,  and  indeed,  in 
earlier  times  almost  the  entire  food  resource  of  the  remote 
West.  The  early  march  of  progress  could  be  traced  by 
means  of  the  tin  cans  on  the  plains,  while  the  early  settler 
thatched  his  roof  with  their  tin. 

After  the  civil  war  broke  out  there  was  a  great  increase 
in  the  number  of  canneries  and  the  industry  was  ex- 
tended from  the  provinces  and  Canada  along  the  North- 
east coast,  throughout  the  Middle  States  and  Maryland 
and  Virginia.  In  1867  the  first  salmon  cannery  was  started 
on  the  Columbia  river,  and  that  branch  of  the  industry  has 
since  extended  to  all  other  rivers  on  the  Pacific  Coast,  British 
Columbia  and  Alaska,  with  an  average  annual  output  of 


American  Industries.  71 

about  1,600,000  cases  of  four  dozen  tins  each.  The  industry 
is  now  located  throughout  the  Southern  and  nearly  all  over 
the  Western  States,  and  is  carried  on  in  California  and 
in  Oregon.  The  canning  of  fish  is  an  enormous  industry  of 
the  Western  rivers  where  salmon  abounds.  These  fishing 
outfits  are  on  a  monster  scale,  and  have  extended,  as  has 
been  said,  even  into  Alaska  in  search  of  a  cheaper  supply  of 
salmon,  the  drain  on  the  old  sources  of  Oregon  and  Califor- 
nia having  almost  exhausted  what  were  supposed  to  be  the 
inexhaustible  streams  of  that  country. 

The  reason  for  the  tremendous  growth  of  the  canning 
industry  is  the  fact  that  it  furnishes  people  in  sections  of  the 
country  where  fresh  fish  and  vegetables  are  not  produced, 
with  a  supply  of  food  throughout  the  year  at  a  very  low  cost. 
Since  the  advent  of  canned  goods  the  diet  of  the  masses  has 
been  greatly  improved.  The  healthfulness  of  the  change  of 
diet  during  the  winter,  induced  by  the  introduction  of  canned 
goods,  need  not  be  dwelt  upon.  There  is  furnished  a  much 
needed  supply  of  anti-scorbutic  food,  by  increasing  the  other- 
wise limited  range  of  the  food  supply  during  the  winter 
months.  It  is  fair  to  assume  that  to  this  improvement  in  the 
variety  and  quality  of  the  diet  is  due,  in  some  degree  at 
least,  the  average  increase  in  longevity,  which  is  shown  by 
the  vital  statistics  to  be  about  two  years  more  than  it  was 
twenty  years  since. 

General  Greeley,  who  commanded  the  Arctic  expedi- 
tion, says  that  the  unequalled  health  of  his  command 
was  due  to  the  use  of  canned  goods,  of  which  they  had 
a  large  supply.  They  were  frozen  solid  and  thawed  out 
several  times,  without  detriment  to  the  flavor  and  quality. 
Mr.  Barrett,  editor  of  the  American  Grocer,  received  a 
letter  from  Sir  Garnet  Wolesley,  stating  that  canned 
goods  were  used  during  the  expedition  in  the  Soudan, 
and  speaking  in  the  highest  terms  of  their  usefulness. 
Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  every  form  of  food  which  can  be 
put  up  can  be  kept  for  years,  and  will  stand  the  extremes  of 
temperature  without  injury.  Condensed  milk  twenty  years 
old  has  been  opened  and  found  as  sweet  as  when  put  in  the 


72  The  Recent  Development  of 

can.  The  popular  idea  is  that  "  the  fresher  things  are  the 
better."  As  a  general  proposition  this  is  doubtless  a  fact, 
but  applied  to  canned  or  preserved  food,  it  is  not  true  to 
nearly  the  same  extent,  and  in  many  cases  is  entirely  mis- 
leading. Some  goods,  especially  such  as  are  imported,  like 
pine  apples,  are  better  the  second  or  third  year  than  they  are 
the  first,  because  it  takes  time  for  the  syrup  to  thoroughly 
permeate  the  fruit;  and  the  same  is  true  of  many  acid  fruits, 
which,  when  first  packed  are  a  little  hard,  but  which  become 
mellowed  with  time  and  the  absorption  of  syrup. 

To  illustrate  the  method  of  canning,  as  now  most  largely 
carried  on  by  the  canners,  we  will  first  take  the  peach;  as  it 
is  the  simplest  of  goods  canned.  The  object  of  the  canner 
is  to  retain  in  the  peaches  as  much  of  the  natural  flavor  and 
freshness  as  possible;  and  great  care  must  be  taken  in  every 
detail  of  handling.  It  is  the  air  within  the  fruit  that  must 
in  some  way  be  disposed  of.  This  is  done  in  the  following 
manner:  the  cans  being  filled  with  a  certain  uniform  weight 
of  fruit  either  water  or  a  syrup  composed  of  sugar  and  water 
sufficient  to  cover  the  fruit  is  added.  The  cans  are  then 
sealed  tight  and  placed  in  crates  or  baskets,  holding  some 
fifty  cans  each.  The  sealing  is  the  process  of  fastening  the 
caps  over  the  openings  and  making  the  cans  solid  and  air- 
tight. 

The  processer,  as  the  one  conducting  the  process  is  called, 
then  immerses  the  cans  in  boiling  tubes  of  water  with  a 
temperature  of  112°  Fahrenheit  and  cooks  the  fruit  from 
five  to  twelve  minutes;  varying  according  to  the  condi- 
tion of  the  fruit,  its  ripeness  or  softness.  The  cooking 
is  simply  for  the  purpose  of  destroying  the  life,  or  active 
principles  of  the  air  contained  in  the  fruit  cells,  or  remain- 
ing in  the  can  after  filling.  In  watching  this  process  we 
notice  that  as  the  can  becomes  heated  in  the  boiling  water 
every  part,  in  a  perfect  can,  becomes  strained  and  swollen 
until  the  ends  starting  from  a  concave  state  become  expanded 
to  a  convexity,  only  limited  by  the  limit  of  tin.  This  is  the 
result  of  the  expansion  of  the  air  and  liquid  under  heating. 
Any  can  having  the  minutest  imperfection  under  this  strain 


American  Industries.  73 

becomes  a  breaking  one,  and  no  expansion  will  take  place, 
the  air  evaporating,  and  if  the  air  hole  is  large  the  juices 
also  will  vent  themselves.  The  test  of  good  and  bad  cans  is 
generally  made  from  an  examination  at  this  point.  Every 
can  coming  out  of  the  boiling  water  in  a  concave  or  flat  con- 
dition is  regarded  with  suspicion,  and  is  handed  over  to  the 
mender  for  examination.  Another  test  sometimes  used  by 
canners  is  sounding  them  after  cooling  a  few  days.  An  ex- 
pert is  capable  of  discovering  good  cans  from  bad  by  the 
sound  when  tapped. 

The  housekeeper  who  does  her  own  canning  is  usually  suc- 
cessful with  peaches.  She  cooks  the  fruit  in  porcelain-lined 
kettles  and  then  by  a  quick  transfer,  while  steaming  hot, 
changes  them  to  her  self-sealing  jars.  The  fruit  is  then 
covered  with  boiling  syrup,  and  when  still  very  hot  the  lids 
are  closed.  The  ease  with  which  the  peach  is  preserved, 
the  air  in  the  fruit  cells  having  been  well  disposed  of  by 
the  liberal  cooking  which  they  have  received,  generally 
renders  their  canning  successful.  The  flavor  of  fruits  in 
canning  is  much  improved  by  the  addition  of  sugar  or  syrup 
to  the  liquid  with  which  they  are  covered,  sugar  acting  the 
part  of  salt  in  many  insipid  articles. 

The  life  of  the  peach  in  cans  prepared  as  above  depends 
much  upon  the  conditions  of  the  process,  or  rather  the  time 
.given  in  the  process.  Peaches  prepared  according  to  the 
short-time  process  are  fresher  than  longer  cooked  fruit,  but 
they  are  more  likely  to  ferment  after  a  period  of  a  year,  or 
in  the  second  summer.  The  can  gives  under  pressure,  and 
the  gases,  which  have  been  held  for  a  time  inactive,  com- 
mence once  more  to  assume  life,  and  it  becomes  necessary  to 
give  the  fruits  a  reprocess  ;  which  is  done  by  simply  prick- 
ing the  tins,  allowing  the  gas  to  escape  and  submitting  the 
•cans  to  a  further  cooking.  This,  of  course,  degenerates  the 
quality  of  the  contents  to  the  extent  of  the  extra  cooking 
and  the  flavor  received  from  the  gas  generated. 

While  berries  are  easily  canned  the  results  obtained  are 
-often  not  satisfactory  to  the  consumer.  Unless  a  large 
amount  of  sugar  is  added  to  the  fruit  it  becomes  watery  and 


74  The  Recent  Development  of 

shriveled.  This  is  because  the  fruit  itself  is  so  largely 
composed  of  juices  that  under  the  influence  of  heat  the  cells 
become  broken,  the  juices  mix  with  the  water,  and  all 
that  remains  of  the  fruit  is  a  whitish,  seedy  substance,  un- 
sightly and  unpalatable. 

Fruits  which,  like  the  peach,  have  their  seed  located  in 
one  definite  place  are,  as  a  rule,  much  more  successfully  can- 
ned than  those  which,  like  the  berry,  have  their  seed 
scattered  through  them.  Seeded  fruits  canned  with  their 
seeds  are  liable  to  show  some  fermentation  during  the  second 
year  of  their  preservation.  This  is,  perhaps,  caused  by 
the  seeds  containing  some  air  life  which  is  not  reached  dur- 
ing the  first  cooking. 

In  vegetables  the  tomato  is  the  most  easily  canned.  The 
housewife  treats  it  in  almost  the  same  manner  as  she  does 
the  peach,  the  only  difference  in  the  operation  is  the  appli- 
cation of  more  heat  to  destroy  the  air  life.  To  can 
tomatoes  requires  about  35  minutes  under  a  boiling  tempera- 
ture of  212  degrees  or  ten  minutes  under  the  steam  of  240 
degrees. 

The  canner  need  give  himself  but  little  anxiety  in  canning 
tomatoes.  The  only  difficulty  is,  to  obtain  the  sufficient  labor 
to  meet  the  demand  of  the  rapidly  maturing  fruit,  which  at 
certain  periods  strains  every  nerve  to  handle  and  to  dispose  of. 
The  fruit  must  be  gotten  into  cans  when  fresh,  and  then 
cooked  the  required  amount  of  time.  There  need  be  no 
question  as  to  the  permanence  of  the  product  obtained ;  a 
little  extra  time  in  process  makes  "  assurance  doubly  sure," 
without  any  degeneration  of  the  fruit  canned,  noticeable  to 
the  general  consumer.  The  tomato  is  a  most  juicy  vegetable. 
It  has  been  spoken  of  as  a  sponge  to  hold  juice,  but  as  it  is 
canned  in  its  own  juice  without  other  liquids  it  retains  its 
flavor  without  adulteration. 

Corn,  peas  and  beans  are  among  the  vegetables  that 
require  the  utmost  care  in  canning,  and  every  condition 
must  be  thoroughly  understood  to  can  them  successfully, 
and  to  hold  them  when  canned.  On  account  of  the  immense 
amount  of  losses  and  of  bad  cans  produced  during  the  season, 


American  Industries.  75 

many  operators  in  packing  corn,  at  the  end  of  the  season 
find  the  business  a  financial  failure.  They  think  they  have 
met  the  conditions  of  past  seasons,  but  these  conditions  are 
now  different.  The  corn  may  be  more  milky,  and  hence  a 
different  process  is  required,  or  even  a  difference  in  the  weight 
of  the  corn  may  endanger  the  canned  product.  The  change  in 
the  method  of  cutting  corn,  by  the  introduction  of  machinery 
instead  of  by  hand,  caused  one  season  in  Hartford,  Con- 
necticut, large  losses  to  the  packers.  The  machines  cut  the 
grain  more  satisfactorily  than  the  knives;  but  the  grain  was 
perhaps  more  broken,  and,  as  it  was  packed  more  closely  in 
the  cans,  they  were  given  additional  weight  and  there  was 
more  gas  or  air  life  to  be  destroyed.  For  these  reasons  the 
vegetable  required  more  cooking. 

The  packing  or  canning  of  meats  is  conducted  under  pre- 
cisely the  same  conditions  as  of  fruits  and  vegetables.     The 
important   feature   of  destroying   the   air  life   in   the   food 
remains  the  same.    In  meats  the  line  of  corn-packing  is  more 
closely  followed  on  account  of  the  excessive  cooking  neces- 
sary to  accomplish  this  result.     One  of  the  first  principles 
to  be  remembered  in  the  canning  of  meats  is  that  the  animal 
heat  must  be  overcome.     Meats  of  all  kinds  must  be  cooled 
for  at  least  twelve  hours  to  allow  the  animal  heat  to  disap- 
pear thoroughly,  and  unless  this  was  done  no   amount  of 
cooking  would  prevent  fermentation  and  the  subsequent  de- 
struction of  the  product.     The  »vacuum  principle  of  cooking 
meats   is   one  that,  could  it  be  carried  out  in  the  general 
household,  would  produce  most  happy  results.     The  oldest 
fowl,  coming  out  of  the  steam  chest  after  a  two  hours'  cook- 
ing, becomes  a  delicacy,  and  is  as  tender  as  the  finest  capon. 
The  toughest  steers  or  oxen  come  out  of  the  tin  can  tender 
enough  to  please  our  English  cousins,  in  the  form  of  roast  beef. 
Our  foreign  canned  goods  trade  is  large  and  increasing. 
Meat  and  fish  form  the  bulk  of   the  shipment,  but  as  our 
fruits  and  delicacies,  as  well  as  standard  preparations,  be- 
come  better   known   abroad   there   must   be  a  demand  for 
them  to  supplement  the  food  supply  of  other  countries.     But 
those  interested  in  the  extension  of  our  foreign  trade  must 


j6  The  Recent  Development  of 

see  to  it  that  only  products  up  to  the  standard  demand  for 
home  consumption  are  shipped  abroad,  and  that  the  foreign 
market  is  not  made  a  dumping  ground  for  goods  unsalable 
at  home. 

The  present  should  be  seized  as  a  favorable  time  for  our 
advancement  in  this  respect.  A  permanent  and  valuable  en- 
largement should  be  made  to  our  foreign  trade.  An  immense 
field  is  opening  in  which  as  yet  our  products  are  hardly  known. 
The  treaty  negotiated  with  Brazil  concedes  to  our  shippers  of 
canned  goods  the  right  to  enter  the  markets  of  that  country 
upon  pa)rment  of  three-fourths  of  the  duty  charged  upon 
similar  goods  from  other  countries.  The  value  of  this  ar- 
rangement may  be  shown  from  the  fact  that  during  the  past 
three  years  the  imports  of  canned  goods  of  all  descriptions 
into  that  country  have  averaged  $606,197.89  in  value,  while 
of  this  total  the  share  of  the  United  States  was  only  $13,894. 

To  show  the  present  extent  of  our  foreign  trade  we  may 
quote  the  following  statement  from  the  official  records  of  the 
Treasury  Department  in  1 890  : 

ARTICLES.  VALUE. 

Beef,  $6,787,193.00 

Salmon,  3,259,344.00 

Other  fish,  69,042.00 

Vegetables,     -  231,265.00 

Fruits,  698,321.00 

Thus  we  see  the  total  value  of  our  exports  for  the  past 

year  amounted  to  $11,045,165.     The  trade  is  world-wide  in 

its  extent  and  should  be  capable  of  indefinite  expansion, 

covering,  as  it  does,  articles  available  for  use  in  all  climes 

and  under  all  conditions  of  human  life. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  discuss  the  immense  benefit  that  the 
canning  industry  has  been  to  the  farming  interests,  and  the 
premium  it  has  put  on  the  development  of  the  land  for  the 
cultivation  of  fruits  and  vegetables.  This  progress  in  turn 
gives  rise  to  the  establishment  of  factories  making  cans, 
labels,  etc.,  so  that  the  canning  industry  with  its  allied  in- 
dustries makes  up  a  large  part  of  the  industrial  establish- 
ments of  our  country. 

WILLIAM  GRAY  KNOWLES. 


American  Industries.  77 


CHAPTER  X. 
MEAT  PRODUCTS. 

The  growth  of  the  industries  connected  with  the  produc- 
tion of  meat,  in  the  United  States,  has  been  very  great  during 
the  past  thirty  years.  New  processes  have  kept  pace  with 
continually  increasing  demands  for  this  kind  of  food,  and 
greatly  cheapened  and  improved  the  methods  of  transporting 
it. 

The  number  of  cattle,  sheep,  and  swine  in  the  country  on 
January  i,  1891,  has  been  estimated  by  the  Department  of 
Agriculture  at  over  145,000,000.  Of  this  total  52,000,000 
were  meat  cattle,  43,000,000  sheep,  and  about  50,000,000 
hogs.  The  distribution  of  this  stock  is  approximately  as  fol- 
lows :  In  New  England  there  are  2.5  per  cent,  of  the  sheep, 
.07  percent,  of  the  hogs,  and  2.7  per  cent,  of  the  cattle.  The 
Middle  States  contain  6.2  per  cent,  of  the  sheep,  4.7  per 
cent,  of  the  hogs,  and  8.8  per  cent,  of  the  cattle.  In  the 
South,  including  Texas,  are  to  be  found  16.3  per  cent,  of  the 
sheep,  21  per  cent,  of  the  hogs,  and  19  per  cent,  of  the 
cattle.  The  great  central  portion  of  the  country  holds  30 
per  cent,  of  the  sheep,  70  per  cent,  of  the  hogs,  and  45  per 
cent,  of  the  cattle. 

Nor  are  the  above  figures  stationary.  During  the  past  ten 
years  the  number  of  cattle  in  the  country  has  risen  a  full 
third,  and  swine  have  kept  pace  with  the  increase  in  popu- 
lation. In  the  West  and  South,  where  a  large  acreage  of 
corn  furnishes  abundant  fodder,  for  the  latter  animals,  their 
increase  has  been  especially  rapid.  The  total  number  of 
sheep,  on  the  other  hand,  has  fallen  off  considerably,  due  to 
the  effect  of  the  tariff  of  1883. 

A  factor  of  great  importance,  in  determining  the  number 
of  stock  fed  on  fodder,  of  any  considerable  market  value,  is 
the  relation  between  the  cost  of  the  feed  and  the  selling  value 
of  the  animal.  When  fodder  is  worth  more,  as  such,  than  in 


78  The  Recent  Development  of 

the  form  of  meat,  many  animals  are  slaughtered  at  a  sacrifice 
to  save  the  expense  of  feeding  them  on  their  accustomed  diet. 

The  railroad  and  general  development  of  the  country  have 
completely  revolutionized  the  methods  of  transporting  meat. 
Formerly  beeves  and  other  animals  were  driven  to  the  great 
cities  on  foot,  where  they  were  bought  by  the  butchers,  who 
killed  and  sold  them  on  the  spot.  Then  as  the  cattle  busi- 
ness was  pushed  westward,  the  journey  Bast  was  too  great 
to  be  profitably  accomplished  on  the  hoof.  Immediate  points 
to  which  the  stock  was  driven  to  be  slaughtered  and  pre- 
served in  various  forms  for  shipment  then  rose  up.  Albany, 
Cincinnati  and  Chicago  have  successively  become  the  great 
meat  centres  of  the  continent.  At  present  it  seems  as  if 
Kansas  City  and  Omaha,  on  account  of  their  nearness  to  the 
supply  and  the  invention  of  refrigerating  apparatus,  by  which 
fresh  meat  can  be  sent  long  distances  by  rail  without  danger 
of  spoiling,  will  soon  surpass  Chicago  in  the  extent  of  their 
meat  business. 

Compared  with  other  countries,  the  consumption  of  meat 
products  in  the  United  States  is  very  high,  being  about  120 
pounds  annually  per  capita  of  the  population.  In  England, 
the  next  highest  country,  it  is  only  about  105,  and  on  the 
Continent  from  76  to  a  smaller  number  of  pounds  per  capita. 

To  this  use  of  meat  must,  in  some  degree,  be  attributed 
the  greater  productive  power  of  American  workmen  over 
those  of  other  countries,  but  it  is  something  more  than  doubt- 
ful whether  the  present  excessive  use  of  meat  in  the  com- 
munity is  advantageous.  While  a  diet  composed  largely  of 
meats  may  be  better  than  one  composed  almost  solely  of  vege- 
tables, it  is  decidely  worse  than  a  judicious  combination  of 
both  vegetable  and  animal  food. 

It  has  been  conclusively  demonstrated  that  a  diet  of  any 
one  class  of  articles  is  injurious  to  the  human  system,  and 
the  sooner  the  American  people  get  rid  of  the  idea  that  great 
quantities  of  meat  (especially  when  it  is  salt  meat),  are 
necessary  to  the  preservation  of  health,  the  sooner  will  a 
proper  condition  for  the  fullest  development  of  the  best  in- 
dustrial qualities  be  brought  about. 


American  Industries.  79 

A  great  advance  has  already  been  made  by  the  invention 
and  use  of  the  refrigerating  processes,  by  means  of  which 
fresh  meat  can  be  supplied  at  so  low  a  rate  as  to  take  the 
place  of  the  salted  and  pickled  articles  in  the  laborer's  bill 
of  fare.  The  process  of  salting,  although  not  so  healthful 
as  the  preservation  of  meat  in  a  fresh  state,  has  many  advan- 
tages, and  is  of  great  extent.  At  one  time  it  was  the  only 
effective  way  of  preserving  meat,  and  is  yet  where  it  has  to 
be  kept  for  a  long  time.  This  fact  has  led  the  trade  in 
canned,  pickled  and  salted  meats  to  assume,  enormous  pro- 
portions. In  the  canning  process  only  the  finest  qualities  of 
beef  are  used,  and  the  export  trade  in  this  article  is  becoming 
an  important  item  in  our  foreign  trade,  more  than  82,000,- 
ooo  pounds,  valued  at  over  $6,780,000,  being  sent  out  of  the 
country  in  1890. 

It  might  naturally  be  inferred  that  the  production  of  such 
vast  quantities  of  meat  as  are  annually  consumed  in  the 
United  States  would  have  a  distinct  economic  effect  on  the 
agricultural  part  of  the  community  by  which  most  of  it  is 
raised.  Such  an  influence  would  not,  however,  be  born  out 
by  the  facts  of  the  case.  Carried  on,  as  it  usually  is,  in  con- 
nection with  farming,  stock  raising  tends  to  fall  to  a  second- 
ary place.  In  the  improvement  of  pasture,  and  in  the  planting 
of  large  quantities  of  fodder,  with  some  attention  to  the  breed- 
ing and  care  of  the  animals,  may  be  summed  up  the  effect 
of  meat  production  on  the  life  of  the  average  American 
farmer. 

It  is  in  the  West  that  a  distinct  type  is  produced  by  the 
ranching  system,  copied  from  the  Mexicans  and  of  Spanish 
origin.  But  even  here  the  march  of  civilization,  by  restrict- 
ing the  ranges  to  smaller  limits  and  making  it  profitable  to 
house  and  feed  the  stock,  is  exercising  its  modifying  in- 
fluence. 

Cattle  were  first  brought  to  America  at  Jamestown,  in 
1609,  and  since  then  have  continually  increased  in  numbers 
and  spread  Westward.  In  1817  some  English  Durham,  or 
short-horn  cattle,  the  finest  beef  producers  in  the  world,  were 
sent  to  this  country  to  improve  the  native  stock.  This  at- 


8o  The  Recent  Development  of 

tempt  was  so  successful  that  besides  greatly  adding  to  the 
value  of  our  former  cattle,  our  own  Durhams  have  been  im- 
ported by  Englishmen  for  breeding  purposes.  Hereford  and 
Devon  cattle,  noted  English  beef  cattle,  have  also  been  intro- 
duced into  this  country,  with  some  success,  their  superior 
hardiness  and  rapid  growth  making  them  favorites  for  the 
ranch.  The  Scotch  polled  or  hornless  cattle,  another  cele- 
brated stock,  has  lately  met  with  some  favor  on  account  of 
their  large  size  and  hornless  condition. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  present  century  cattle  grazed 
along  the  fertile  river  valleys  on  the  Atlantic  slope.  At  this 
time  Albany  was  the  great  meat  centre  and  shipping  point  of 
the  Union.  Land  in  this  section  soon  became  too  valuable 
for  pasture,  and  the  cattle  business  was  pushed  westward 
into  the  Mississippi  valley,  always  keeping  well  in  the  rear 
of  emigration.  When  Texas  was  admitted  into  the  Union 
the  ranching  system  was  extended  over  a  great  part  of  the 
Western  plains.  Cattle  roamed  at  will,  distinguished  by 
their  respective  brands,  and  with  no  other  care  than  that  of 
the  cowboys,  who  annually  drove  them  to  market.  Cincin- 
nati was  now  the  great  meat  centre. 

In  the  course  of  time  cattle  have  spread  all  over  that  sec- 
tion of  country  formerly  laid  down  on  the  maps  as  the 
<(  Great  American  Desert."  This  region  is  their  natural 
home.  Even  the  grasses,  with  which  the  soil  is  covered,  in- 
stead of  rotting  in  winter  cure  on  the  stalk,  and  afford  excel- 
lent pasture  at  all  times,  unless  the  snow  is  very  deep,  when 
many  animals  die  of  hunger  and  cold;  a  state  of  affairs  that 
is  now  being  improved  by  the  more  conscientious  stockmen, 
who  lay  by  a  share  of  fodder  for  such  seasons,  thus  relieving 
the  cattle  business  of  much  of  its  cruelty. 

Large  companies,  by  buying  up  all  the  available  grazing 
lands,  have  recently  crowded  many  small  stock  men  to  the 
wall.  It  has  been  found  that  cattle  can  be  more  easily  and 
better  cared  for  on  a  large  scale.  Before  many  years  most 
of  the  ranch  business  may  be  in  the  hands  of  great  companies. 

The  importance  of  the  ranch  business  lies  in  the  fact  that 
it  supplies  our  export  trade  in  beef.  This  branch  of  our 


American  Industries.  8r 

meat  production  ought  to  receive  the  close  attention  of  think- 
ing men,  that  it  may  meet  the  increasing  demand  of  Kuropean 
laborers  for  animal  food. 

Sheep-raising  in  the  United  States,  viewed  from  the  point 
of  a  meat  consumer,  is  in  a  peculiar  state.  The  reason  for 
this  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  sheep  in  this  part  of  the 
world  are  raised  for  their  wool  and  not  for  their  flesh.  The 
wool-producing  qualities,  and  not  those  which  tend  to  the 
best  mutton,  being  in  consequence  those  most  developed. 
Costly  merinos,  imported  from  Spain,  have  done  much  for  the 
former  and  almost  nothing  for  the  latter  qualities.  Until 
within  recent  years,  nothing  had  been  done  towards  improv- 
ing the  table  qualities  of  our  native  sheep,  and  the  attempt 
to  produce  choice  American  mutton  must  be  considered  an 
outgrowth  of  the  tariff  of  1883. 

This  tariff  lowered  the  duty  in  wool  imported  into  the 
United  States,  and  thousands  of  sheep  were  at  once  sent  to 
Chicago  and  other  points  to  be  slaughtered,  by  the  frightened 
stockmen,  who  thought  that  the  reduced  duty  had  taken  all 
the  profit  out  of  American  sheep  raising.  A  glut  in  the 
mutton  market  was  the  natural  consequence,  and  prices  fell 
so  low  that  the  poorer  classes  could  afford  to  buy  the  choic- 
est portions  of  the  carcasses  of  the  sheep.  A  wholesome 
liking  for  it  soon  became  established,  its  cheapness,  the  ease 
with  which  it  was  digested  and  great  nutritive  qualities,, 
strongly  recommending  it  to  the  American  appetite. 

When  prices  rose,  the  attention  of  stockmen  was  called  to 
this  new  demand,  and  as  a  result  English  Cotswolds,  South- 
downs  and  other  mutton  sheep  were  imported.  It  is  to  be 
hoped  that  these  efforts  will  be  crowned  with  the  success 
they  deserve,  and  the  splendid  sheep  country  at  the  foot  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains  makes  these  prospects  very  bright.  The 
abundant  diet  of  aromatic  grasses  to  be  found  in  such  locali- 
ties, conducing  to  the  preservation  of  the  animals  in  a  state 
of  health,  and  to  their  rapid  growth,  is  the  great  advantage 
of  this  part  of  the  country  for  sheep  raising.  Its  drier 
climate  also  makes  impossible  many  sheep  diseases  of  the 
Eastern  States. 


82  The  Recent  Development  of 

The  growth  of  the  sheep  industry  throughout  the  country 
during  the  past  year  has  been  very  marked.  That  this  is 
partly  due  to  the  effect  of  the  McKinley  bill,  raising  the 
duty  on  wool,  is  undoubtedly  true;  nevertheless  the  new  in- 
terest in  mutton  raising  has  had  much  to  do  with  it. 

We  may  confidently  say  then  that  American  mutton  is 
being  rapidly  improved,  both  in  quality  and  quantity,  and 
we  can  look  forward  to  the  time  when  its  more  general  con- 
sumption will  raise  our  national  standard  of  health,  since 
mutton  is  probably  more  easily  digested  and  freer  from  dis- 
ease than  any  other  kind  of  meat  on  the  market. 

Swine  are  supposed  to  have  been  first  brought  within  the 
present  limits  of  the  United  States  by  De  Soto,  who,  in  1538, 
took  a  number  of  them  to  Florida.  The  number  of  hogs  in 
the  country  rapidly  increased  as  time  went  on,  although  no 
particular  attention  was  paid  to  their  breeding,  food  or 
shelter,  for  a  long  time.  About  1830,  the  experiment  of 
crossing  our  native  hogs  with  the  best  foreign  breeds  was 
tried.  The  result  of  this  attempt  is  to  be  found  in  the 
celebrated  stock  of  our  Central  States,  where  famous  breeds, 
such  as  the  Ohio  Poland-Chinas,  have  originated. 

For  a  long  time  it  was  next  to  impossible  to  raise  hogs 
west  of  the  Mississippi  River,  a  state  of  affairs  that  has  now 
become  ancient  history,  through  the  attention  of  practical 
men  to  their  production.  Iowa  is  the  greatest  hog  raising 
State,  and  here,  as  elsewhere,  the  business  is  chiefly  carried 
on  by  farmers.  Pork  making  is  a  profitable  investment  for 
their  corn  crops.  This  fact  was  clearly  seen  last  year  when 
the  rise  in  the  price  of  corn  compelled  every  farmer  to  get 
rid  of  his  pigs  as  soon  as  possible. 

The  increase  of  the  number  of  hogs  in  the  country  has 
been  very  great  during  the  past  thirty  years,  the  total  of 
of  1 890  doubling  that  of  1860.  To-day  almost  half  the  hogs 
in  the  world  are  to  be  found  in  the  United  States,  and  hog 
packing  is  our  principal  meat  industry,  although  the  total 
value  of  our  cattle  is  far  above  that  of  hogs.  In  regard  to 
our  home  consumption  of  hog  product,  it  has  been  estimated 
at  being  annually  about  65  pounds  or  more  than  one-half 


American  Industries.  83 

of  the  whole  quantity  of  meat  used  per  capita  of  the  pop- 
ulation. As  pork  is  universally  acknowledged  to  be  the 
least  digestible,  and  most  open  to  disease  of  all  ordinary 
kinds  of  meat,  the  situation  here  portrayed  is  a  most  serious 
one. 

In  regard  to  the  general  meat  supply  of  the  United  States 
it  may  be  said  in  closing  that  it  is  amply  sufficient  for  our 
present  needs,  and  fully  capable  of  more  than  keeping  pace 
with  any  increase  of  population  that  may  reasonably  be  ex- 
pected. 

JAMES  M.  CASTLE. 


84  The  Recent  Development  of 


CHAPTER  XI. 
IMPROVMENTS  IN  LOCOMOTIVES. 

We  wonder  at  times  how  we  could  exist  without  that 
promoter  of  commerce — the  locomotive.  When  we  think  of 
the  slow  process  of  travel  in  early  days,  when  the  transporta- 
tion of  articles  of  any  considerable  weight  or  bulk  was  im- 
possible, we  cease  to  wonder  at  the  invention  of  the  iron  mon- 
ster, which  now  precedes  civilization  and  opens  up  districts 
that  were  formerly  almost  impenetrable  to  civilized  man. 
The  invention  of  the  locomotive  by  Watt,  together  with  the 
many  improvements  by  him,  Murdock,  Irevittrick  and  others 
down  to  the  Americans,  amongst  whom  are  Miller  and  Bald- 
win, have  made  the  locomotive  what  it  is  to-day — a  fit  handi- 
work showing  the  master  mind  of  man. 

The  period  just  following  the  opening  of  the  civil  war  is 
noted  for  the  introduction  of  steel  in  locomotive  construction. 
The  steel  was  imported  from  England.  A  little  later  a  class 
of  engines,  well-known  and  used  on  the  various  roads  in  the 
United  States,  had  its  origin.  The  first  engine  of  this  class 
was  built  at  Baldwin's  shops  in  1866.  As  this  engine  was 
intended  to  become  the  property  of  the  Mahanoy  railroad,  at 
the  time  of  its  consolidation  with  the  L,ehigh  Valley  railroad, 
it  was  thought  apropos  to  name  it  the  Consolidation. 

This  engine,  since  that  time,  has  been  made  forty  thou- 
sand pounds  heavier.  It  has  a  straight  boiler  with  the  fire- 
box above  the  frames  giving  greater  dimensions,  instead  ot 
wagon-top  boiler  with  the  fire-box  between  the  frames.  A 
greater  distance  between  the  grate  bars  and  the  top  of  grate 
bars  tends  to  equalize  the  draft  on  the  fire  and  give  more  space 
for  the  mixture  of  the  gases.  The  steam  pipe  and  passages 
in  the  saddle  have  also  been  enlarged  so  as  to  diminish  the 
loss  of  pressure  in  the  cylinder.  These  latter  improvements 
were  introduced  in  1884.  The  consolidation  engine,  built 


American  Industries.  85 

during  the  same  year,  has  a  square- topped  fire-box  casing 
known  as  the  Belpaire  fire-box. 

One  of  the  earliest  of  the  improvements  which  contributed 
to  the  advancement  of  American  locomotive  engineering 
was  the  spark-arrester.  The  spark-arrester  is  peculiarly  an 
American  institution  and  possesses  little  practical  value  be- 
yond that  derived  from  American  practice.  It  was  of  neces- 
sity used  on  the  wood-burning  locomotives  of  1830.  B.  May, 
of  Boston,  patented  a  cylinder  of  wire  netting,  extending 
from  the  exhaust  pipes  to  the  stack,  July  28th,  1857;  and 
A.  Sweet,  of  Detroit,  patented  double  cylindrical  deflectors 
on  a  similar  principle,  June  23d,  1863.  Nothing  more  ap- 
pears to  have  been  done  until  1870,  when  Wilder' s  perfor- 
ated cone  was  patented.  In  1873,  Charles  T.  Pike,  of 
Providence,  patented  a  spark-arrester,  by  which  the  sparks 
were  returned  to  the  fire-box  through  the  lower  tubes  of  the 
boiler.  The  latest  device  acts  by  equalizing  the  draft 
through  the  upper  and  lower  tubes  and  also  deflects  the  es- 
caping sparks  and  cinders  to  the  bottom  of  the  smoke-box. 
From  this  they  are  carried  (by  the  action  of  the  exhaust)  out 
of  the  chimney. 

Improvements  in  smoke-stacks  have  been  made  with  the 
desire  of  promoting  economy  in  fuel,  and  producing  stronger 
drafts,  as  well  as  lessening  the  danger  from  the  escape  of 
sparks.  George  Holten  patented  a  smoke-stack  which  con- 
sists of  an  outside  case,  with  an  inside  pipe  extending  from 
the  bottom  of  the  stack  to  the  point  of  a  deflector.  This  de- 
flector has  a  flange  extending  upward  to  support  the  netting. 
This  netting  is  arranged  in  the  form  of  a  frustrum  of  a  cone, 
extending  from  the  deflector  to  the  top  of  the  stack,  to  which 
it  is  closely  fitted  to  prevent  the  escape  of  sparks.  This  ar- 
rangement protects  the  netting  from  severe  wear  and  presents 
a  large  surface  for  the  escape  of  gases  and  exhaust  steam. 
The  sparks,  striking  against  the  netting,  fall  into  the  outside 
case,  from  which  they  are  removed  by  means  of  an  opening 
near  the  base  of  the  stack.  Fontaine's  smoke-stack,  designed 
about  1870,  consists  of  an  inverted  cone  or  deflector  with  re- 
curring flanges,  placed  directly  on  the  pipe  and  beneath  the 


86  The  Recent  Development  of 

netting.  A  cylinder  with  a  flange  is  secured  by  the  fasten- 
ing about  the  pipe  so  as  to  leave  an  annular  opening  between 
the  pipe  and  cylinder.  The  sparks  from  the  fire-box  are  car- 
ried up  through  the  pipe  and  cylinder,  and,  striking  the  cone, 
are  thrown  down  the  outside  of  the  cylinder  upon  the  con- 
verging bottom  of  the  head,  so  as  to  come  beneath  the  open- 
ing between  the  cylinder  and  inside  pipe,  where  they  are 
again  carried  up  through  the  cylinder,  until  again  striking 
the  deflector  they  are  again  thrown  down.  This  process  is 
repeated  until  the  sparks  are  extinguished  by  steam  and 
beaten  to  dust,  whence  they  are  carried  off  through  the 
bonnet. 

The  chief  feature  of  a  smoke-stack,  designed  by  J.  N. 
Boon  (1883)  is  the  lower  part  of  the  stack,  between  the  base 
casing  and  the  receptacle  for  sparks.  This  is  made  tapering, 
while  in  other  stacks  it  is  cylindrical.  The  latest  design  of 
this  part  of  the  locomotive  is  that  of  J.  P.  Brown  (1890). 
The  stack  is  of  the  diamond  type,  with  netting  in  the  shape 
of  a  balloon,  four  inches  smaller  than  the  outside  of  the 
stack.  ,  A  greater  opening  is  thus  given  for  draft,  while  the 
sparks  are  prevented  from  passing  through. 

A  new  form  of  smoke-box  was  patented  by  George  Hen- 
derson, October  2oth,  1885.  This  smoke-box  has  for  its 
object  the  protection  of  the  sheet  of  the  smoke-box  extension 
from  hot  coals  and  cinders  which  collect  in  it.  This  is  done 
by  means  of  a  cast  iron  plate,  separated  from  the  sheet  by  a 
layer  of  clay.  In  1886,  J.  N.  Lander  designed  an  improved 
blast  pipe.  He  uses  a  single  nozzle,  its  centre  corresponding 
with  the  centre  of  the  smoke-stack.  A  wasteful  rise  in  back 
pressure  is  thus  prevented  by  the  exhaust  from  one  cylinder 
blowing  back  down  the  passage  leading  from  the  other. 

About  1879  a  process  was  designed  by  which  the  exhaust 
steam  is  utilized.  This  was  brought  about  by  a  forced  water 
jet  being  united  with  a  dry  or  super-heated  steam.  Both 
steam  and  water  were  taken  from  the  boiler,  to  which  they 
were  returned  together  with  the  exhaust.  In  1888  the  area 
of  the  exhaust  passage  was  increased  and  divided  into  two 
branches.  One  allows  the  exhaust  steam  to  pass  away  as 


American  Industries.  87 

usual,  while  the  other  permits  the  escape  by  a  more  circuitous 
route,  partially  embracing  the  cylinder.  The  exhaust  steam 
is  thus  prevented  from  choking  the  outlet. 

One  of  the  most  important  as  well  as  useful  inventions  was 
that  of  the  atmospheric  brake  designed  by  George  Westing- 
house.  A  pump,  operated  by  steam  from  the  locomotive, 
provides  a  supply  of  condensed  air  at  a  certain  definite  pres- 
sure, at  all  times.  This  compressed  air  is  conducted  to  a 
cylinder  under  each  car  and  by  its  pressure  upon  a  piston 
working  in  these  cylinders  applies  the  brake.  An  ingenious 
invention  enables  the  engineer  to  apply  the  brake  with  more 
or  less  instantaneous  force  on  each  truck. 

In  1873,  J.  E.  Worten  got  his  new  fire-box  to  work  prop- 
erly. This  fire-box  is  used  to  a  very  great  extent  on  the 
Philadelphia  and  Reading  railroad.  The  boiler  of  this  loco- 
motive has  an  enormous  amount  of  grate  surface,  and  a  some- 
what shallow  fire-box  which  joins  a  combustion  chamber. 
This  combustion  chamber  extends  into  the  barrel  which 
is  tapered — being  smaller  at  the  front  ring.  Two  domes 
are  placed,  one  on  the  smaller  and  the  other  on  the  larger 
end  of  the  barrel.  The  fire-box  was  designed  to  burn  waste 
anthracite  coal,  and  its  enlarged  grate  admits  a  very  econom- 
ical consumption  of  fuel.  He  devised  his  patent  damper  in 
front  of  the  door  as  a  means  for  cooling  the  boiler  down. 

An  improvement  intended  to  facilitate  the  movement  of 
locomotives  is  Brevoort's  throttle  valve  lever.  It  was  im- 
possible, before  1871,  to  start  an  engine  without  some  jar- 
ring. This  valve  was  intended  to  do  away  with  this.  It  can 
be  opened  slowly  by  means  of  a  screw,  or  rapidly  by  means 
of  a  lever.  The  lever  has  an  ordinary  spring  latch  which 
gears  into  the  thread  of  the  screw.  By  turning  the  hand 
wheel  the  lever  is  of  course  moved  b)'  the  thread  of  the 
screw.  In  1873  a  small  additional  valve  was  placed  under 
the  main  valve  for  the  same  reason.  An  improved  graduator 
or  reverse  lever  was  designed  (1871)  to  regulate  more  ac- 
curately the  admission  of  steam  to  the  cylinders. 

An  improved  cut  off  valve  was  designed  in  1872.  The 
improvement  consisted  in  holding  the  steam  until  the  piston 


•88  The  Recent  Development  of 

was  near  the  end  of  the  stroke  and  then  releasing  the  same,  as 
live  steam  was  admitted  at  the  opposite  end.  Mr.  H.  Elliott 
•(1873)  patented  a  valve  which  consists  simply  of  an  exten- 
sion of  the  lap  of  the  valve  through  which  steam  is  admit- 
ted into  the  parts  by  holes  drilled  in  the  extension.  This  is 
intended  to  obviate  the  leakage  caused  by  the  wear  of  the 
valve  in  the  valve  seat.  Jackson's  patent  valve  consists  of  a 
false  face  placed  over  the  ports.  The  valve  is  placed  in  a 
vertical  position  and  works  on  two  faces  slightly  inclined 
from  the  vertical.  As  the  valve  might  tend  to  jam,  it  is 
supported  by  two  horizontal  rubbing  faces  on  top  of  the 
false  face.  As  these  wear  the  valve  comes  and  takes  up  any 
wear  on  the  inclined  faces.  As  fast  as  the  inclined  surfaces 
wear  and  so  tend  to  leak,  the  wear  on  the  horizontal  sur- 
faces will  let  the  valve  descend  and  so  keep  it  tight. 

In  1871,  the  attention  of  Mr.  Buchanan  was  directed  to  the 
difficulty  of  keeping  the  ordinary  cylinder  plug  cock  from 
leaking.  To  remedy  this  defect  he  designed  a  cylinder  cock 
which  consisted  of  a  conical  seat  valve,  so  arranged  as  to  be 
taken  out  and  ground  into  its  seat.  When  the  valve  is  lifted 
from  its  seat  the  water  or  steam  escapes  through  an  opening, 
;and  in  case  the  piston  should  create  a  vacuum  in  the  cylinder, 
the  valve  will  lift  and  admit  air  into  it.  A  patented  cylinder 
cock  by  Hayes  &  Schlacks  (1878)  allows  the  seat  and  valve 
to  be  readily  removed  and  reground  without  disturbing  the 
joint  which  is  made  with  the  cylinder. 

In  1876  Mr.  Hudson  used  an  improved  safety  valve  which 
was  planned  to  cover  the  difficulty  of  relieving  the  boiler 
pressure  rapidly  and,  also,  to  keep  the  valve  open  without 
difficulty.  The  first  improvement  in  a  blow- back  noiseless 
safety  valve  was  patented  by  Peter  C.  Wortman  in  1 869.  This 
was  intended  to  use  the  waste  steam  which  escapes  from  the 
safety  valve  for  heating  the  water  in  the  tank.  The  patent 
was  re-issued  to  the  Ashburton  Co.  in  1877.  On  July  12,  1878, 
a  patent  was  granted  by  which  the  waste  steam  was  carried 
either  into  the  smoke-box  or  water  tank.  A  few  years  later, 
1 88 1,  Henry  Ashburton  patented  the  latest  improvement  in 
this  form  of  valves.  By  it  the  steam  which  escapes 


American  Industries.  89- 

from  the  safety  valve  or  valves  is  conducted  to  the  tank 
which  contains  the  feed  water.  The  steam  is  thus  utilized 
and  the  noise  caused  by  its  escape  is  prevented. 

William  Wilson  applied  a  new  form  of  valve  -gear  to  an 
engine,  on  the  Chicago  and  Alton,  in  1886.  Two  valves  are 
used  for  each  cylinder,  worked  by  one  eccentric.  One  valve 
controls  the  steam  and  the  other  the  exhaust.  The  latest 
improvement  in  valve  gear  is  an  inner  crown  so  arranged  as 
to  prevent  the  admission  of  dust  and  ashes  into  the  mechan- 
ism of  the  valve.  Another  late  device  is  Grime's  valve  gear,, 
which  is  much  easier  to  handle  than  the  link  motion.  It  has- 
fewer  pieces,  and  thus  lessens  the  cost  of  construction.  This 
form  of  valve  gear  was  tried  at  Cedar  Rapids  in  1881. 

The  novel  features  of  a  locomotive  completed  by  the  Old. 
Colony  railroad,  in  1885,  are  the  injector  checks  and  the  steam 
gauge  stand.  These  are  fitted  with  automatic  valves,  which 
can  be  closed  while  the  engine  is  under  pressure,  thereby 
enabling  repairs  to  be  made  without  blowing  off  the  steam. 
If  any  part  should  be  broken  the  valve  would  close  from  the 
inside  of  the  boiler,  preventing  the  escape  of  steam.  All  pipe 
connections  in  the  boilers  are  fitted  to  the  steam  gauge  stand, 
necessitating  only  one  hole  in  the  boiler. 

In  recent  years  a  few  improvements  have  been  made  in  fire- 
boxes for  the  purpose  of  creating  a  better  combustion  of 
fuel,  or  creating  a  greater  heat  and  thus  causing  the  rapid 
generation  of  steam.  In  1877  a  new  engine  was  built  with 
a  fire-box  designed  by  William  Buchanan.  This  fire-box  has 
his  patent  deflector,  or  "water-table,"  which  extends  from 
the  front  of  tube  sheet  (beginning  below  the  tube),  upward,  to 
the  back  end  of  the  fire-box.  This  divides  the  fire-box  into  two 
parts,  which  communicate  with  each  other  by  an  opening  in 
the  water-table  about  the  size  and  form  of  an  ordinary  fur- 
nace door.  In  a  fire-box,  used  on  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad, 
the  fire-bricks  are  supported  in  a  peculiar  manner.  They 
rest  on  tubes,  which  are  fastened  into  tube  plates  below  the 
fire  tubes,  extending  backward  and  upward,  and  at  the  other 
end  are  fastened  into  the  crown  sheet. 

A  new  furnace  named  the  Bonta  Furnace  was  placed  in  an 


90  The  Recent  Development  of 

engine  constructed  by  the  Hinkley  Works,  of  Boston,  in  1877. 
Many  advantages  were  claimed  for  this  engine  which  do  not 
•exist  in  others.  An  ordinary  locomotive  is  used  with  a 
blower  or  air  compressor  (saddled  on  the  outside  of  the 
boiler)  in  front  of  the  steam  dome.  The  air  from  this  blower 
operated  by  a  small  engine  on  the  fireman's  seat — is  con- 
veyed to  the  ash-pan,  under  the  grate.  leading  into  the 
combustion  chamber,  situated  above  the  grate,  is  a  curved 
funnel  (called  a  magazine)  extending  to  within  two  inches 
of  the  surface  of  the  grate.  This  magazine  is  double,  the 
inside,  being  connected  with  the  boiler,  is  full  of  water. 
The  other  end  of  this  magazine  is  riveted  to  the  fire-box  at 
the  place  the  furnace  door  is  usually  placed  in  most  locomo- 
tives. The  coal  is  shoveled  into  this  magazine  and  by  the 
motion  of  the  engine  is  evenly  distributed  over  the  grate. 
The  supply  of  fuel  is  thus  kept  up  as  combustion  progresses 
and  the  ashes  are  sifted — by  the  same  motion — into  the 
ash-pit. 

A  novel  apparatus  for  super-heating  steam  consists  of  a 
steam  pipe  arranged  to  pass  through  the  roof  of  the  fire-box, 
and  extending  horizontally  therein,  to  repass  through  the 
:said  roof  and  connect  with  the  cylinder.  A  patent  heat- 
retainer,  applied  on  the  Philadelphia,  Wilmington  &  Balti- 
more Railroad,  consists  of  a  series  of  dampers,  placed  in  front 
of  the  tubes  which  thus  prevent  the  escape  of  heat. 

A  few  improvements  have  been  made  in  boilers  with  a 
view  of  utilizing  to  a  greater  extent  the  heat  from  the  com- 
bustion of  fuel.  Hick's  improvement  (1875)  consists  of  a 
series  of  vertical  water  tubes  placed  in  front  of  the  flue  open- 
ings. A  lime  catcher  and  water  filter^has  been  applied  to  an 
engine  on  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad,  and  the  results  have 
shown  a  greatly  diminished  deposit  of  scale  in  the  boiler. 
The  Coventry  boiler,  constructed  by  the  Brooks  locomotive 
works,  in  1888,  is  a  return  to  the  flue  boiler,  the  smoke-stack 
being  placed  on  the  crown  sheet.  The  Chicago  and  North- 
western Railroad  are  trying  an  engine  on  this  principle.  The 
heat  is  carried  through  the  lower  flues  to  the  smoke-box  in 
.the  front,  where  it  strikes  a  deflector  and  is  returned  the 


American  Industries.  91 

length  of  the  boiler  through  the  upper  flues  to  a  smoke-box, 
next  to  the  cab,  and  ejected  from  the  smoke-stack  in  that 
part  of  the  boiler. 

Two  new  engines  have  recently  been  completed  which  are 
departures  from  the  ordinary  type  of  locomotives.  One  is  the 
Strong  express  locomotive  (1886),  the  other  is  the  compound 
locomotive  (1889).  After  a  study  in  Europe,  George  S. 
Strong  completed  his  locomotive.  The  crown  bars  and  side 
stays  are  done  away  with,  and  the  fire-box  is  designed  to  in- 
sure complete  combustion  of  fuel,  by  burning  the  gases  and 
.sparks.  The  driving  coupling  is  so  arranged  that  the  slide 
valve  is  unnecessary,  and  there  is  also  a  better  distribution 
of  wearing  surface  on  the  crank  pins.  The  valve  motion  is 
also  improved,  and  the  feed  water  is  heated  by  a  portion  of 
the  exhaust. 

The  compound  locomotive  has  been  in  use  in  Europe  for 
fourteen  years.  A  locomotive  was  constructed,  on  a  plan 
.similar  to  the  compound  principle,  by  the  Rogers  Locomotive 
Works,  in  1873.  Nothing  more  was  done  until  .within  two 
years  past,  when  the  first  American  compound  locomotive 
was  constructed  at  Baldwin's.  The  special  feature  of  the 
compound  engine  is  that  it  passes  the  steam  through  two  or 
more  cylinders,  for  the  purpose  of  utilizing  to  the  fullest 
extent  the  expansive  force  of  the  steam. 

The  locomotive  has  increased  greatly  in  size  and  dimen- 
sions since  1854.  An  engine  of  thirty-seven  and  one-half 
tons  weight  was  constructed  in  1864.  Eleven  years  previous 
it  was  thought  unadvisable  to  build  an  engine  of  even 
thirty  tons  and  a  locomotive  of  three  times  that  weight 
would  have  been  astounding.  Yet  to  such  an  extent  has  the 
weight  of  engines  increased  that  now  they  are  three  and  four 
times  ?>s  heavy  as  they  were  thirty  years  ago.  The  consoli- 
dation engines  alone  increased  twenty-two  thousand,  nine 
liundred  and  eighty-five  pounds  during  the  decade  1876- 
1886. 

This  increase  in  weight  and  size  arises  from  the  fact  that 
practice  demonstrates  that  heavy  engines  are  more  econom- 
ical to  use.  In  the  substitution  of  heavy  for  light  locomo- 


92  The  Recent  Development  of 

tives  fewer  engines  are  required  which  causes  a  decrease  in 
repairs,  wages,  fuel  and  oil.  Less  wear  is  caused  to  the 
line  and  less  room  is  needed  for  the  round-house.  The 
efficiency  of  locomotive  engineers  and  crews  employed  is 
also  greatly  increased.  There  is  also  a  notable  gain  in  the 
train  load  moved  without  a  material  expense  for  labor 
being  incurred. 

HENRY  HALI<  SINNAMON. 


American  Industries.  93 


CHAPTER  XII. 
GOLD  AND  SILVER  MINING. 

Gold  is  found  in  two  widely  different  conditions.  First, 
it  is  found  in  lodes  and  veins,  filled  chiefly  with  quartz, 
traversing  the  older  slaty  and  metamorphic  rocks,  principally 
those  of  the  Cumbrian  and  I^aurentian  Age,  as  well  as  finely 
disseminated  rocks  of  a  granular  structure.  Secondly,  it  is 
found  distributed  in  gravel,  sand,  clay  and  in  other  detrital 
matters  scattered  over  the  valleys  and  plains  along  the  base 
of  great  mountain  chains.  This  is  due  to  the  action  of  natural 
forces,  such  as  rain,  atmosphere,  ice,  etc.,  which  gradually 
disintegrate  the  solid  rocks  and  spread  their  ruins  over  these 
places.  Consequently  the  method  of  mining  these  two  kinds 
of  deposits  differs;  that  of  the  first  kind  is  called  "Vein  or 
quartz"  mining,  and  that  of  the  second  kind  "Placer" 
mining. 

The  process  of  placer  mining  is  much  simpler  than  that  of 
vein  mining.  The  gold  being  found  in  native  form,  requires 
only  digging  and  washing.  The  simplest  method  of  this 
kind  of  mining  is  the  so-called  "pan"  mining,  generally 
practiced  during  the  earlier  period  in  California.  The 
pan  is  made  of  a  sheet  iron  or  tin  vessel  with  a  flat  bottom 
about  a  foot  in  diameter.  This  being  filled  with  the  dirts 
containing  gold  must  be  shaken  vigorously  under  water. 
The  earthy  portion  is  gradually  dissolved  and  carried  off  by 
the  stream  of  water,  leaving  only  heavy  metallic  particles  in 
the  bottom.  In  spite  of  so  crude  and  laborious  an  implement, 
the  placer  mines  of  those  days  were  so  rich  that  fortunate 
miners  often  made  from  one  to  five  thousand  dollars  a  day 
apiece.  The  rocker  or  cradle,  which  succeeded  the  pan,  is 
a  wooden  box,  some  six  or  seven  feet  long  and  about  two 
feet  wide,  mounted  on  rockers,  so  that  the  bottom  has  a 
gentle  slope  from  one  end  to  the  other.  Across  the  bottom  are 
nailed  wooden  bars,  known  as  "riffles,"  so  as  to  make  a 


94  The  Recent  Development  of 

series  of  small  shallow  weirs  in  the  cradle.  At  the  top  end 
of  the  rocker  is  fixed  a  hopper  or  box,  with  the  bottom 
pierced  with  holes,  half  an  inch  in  diameter,  for  the  purpose 
of  keeping  back  layer  stones.  Into  this  hopper  dirts  are 
shovelled  and  a  constant  stream  of  water  is  kept  running  on 
to  the  mass.  The  dissolved  portion  of  the  dirt  passes  through 
the  holes,  and  the  gold  particles  are  caught  by  the  riffle  bars. 
Since  much  of  the  gold  is  lost,  except  when  it  is  very  coarse, 
this  rocker  is  a  very  rough  instrument,  but  cheap  and  port- 
able and  one  not  requiring  much  water  for  its  operation; 
and  was  considered  a  great  improvement  over  the  pan.  The 
rocker  was  soon  replaced,  however,  by  another  implement 
closely  allied  to  it,  called  the  "Tom,"  and  shortly  after  a 
great  advance  was  made  by  the  introduction  of  the  sluice 
method.  The  sluice  is  also  a  trough  or  box  which  may  be 
of  any  size  and  length,  according  to  the  quantity  of  material 
to  be  washed  and  the  amount  of  water  available.  The  bottom 
is  provided  with  riffled  bars,  similar  to  those  of  the  rocker. 
To  its  upper  end  a  constant  and  swift  stream  of  water  is  sup- 
plied through  an  artificial  channel  from  a  reservoir  or  from 
some  stream.  The  strong  current  of  water  breaks  up  the 
lumps  of  earth,  and  the  gold  particles  caught  by  the  riffles 
are  afterward  gathered  by  means  of  quicksilver  forming  an 
amalgam  with  gold.  As  the  area  available  for  such  simple 
methods  of  mining  was  comparatively  limited,  it  was  soon 
worked  out  by  the  daily  multiplying  number  of  miners.  It 
became  necessary  to  extend  the  working  ground  to  localities 
higher  and  more  distant  from  the  streams.  As  the  diffi- 
culties of  shovelling  and  washing  became  greater  they  were 
met  successfully  by  the  discovery  of  a  process,  the  effective- 
ness of  which  revolutionized  the  entire  business  of  placer 
mining.  This  was  the  hydraulic  method,  introduced  in  1852. 
It  consists  in  throwing  powerful  jets  of  water  issuing  from 
the  pipes  under  high  pressure  against  the  face  of  the  bank 
of  gravel,  by  which  operation  the  gravel  is  first  washed  down 
and  then  received  in  the  sluice.  When  the  gravel  is  too 
hard  to  be  destroyed  by  water  power  alone  it  is  first  shaken 
up  by  the  use  of  explosive  powder,  Many  tons  of  powder 


American  Industries.  95 

are  often  used  for  a  single  blast.  The  success  of  this  method 
has  never  been  surpassed.  It  is  said  that  a  man  with  a  cradle 
can  wash  one  cubic  yard  of  earth  in  a  day;  with  a  "  Tom  " 
he  might  average  double  that  number;  with  a  sluice  four 
yards;  and  with  the  hydraulic  method  and  sluice  combined 
fifty  or  even  over  a  hundred  yards. 

With  the  introduction  of  sluice  and  hydraulic  mining  the 
entire  aspect  of  the  industry  was  changed.  It  was  no  longer 
possible  for  individual  diggers  or  disorganized  bands  of  miners 
to  meet  the  enormous  outlay  of  capital  required  for  the  work. 
The  distinction  between  capital  and  labor  became  marked. 
Many  large  mining  companies  came  into  existence,  while  the 
wandering  adventurers  were  converted  into  ordinary  labor- 
ers, working  for  daily  wages.  The  need  of  a' water  supply- 
was  met  by  an  extensive  system  of  artificial  reservoirs  and 
the  construction  of  artificial  water  courses  to  convey  the 
water  to  the  mines.  Some  of  these  are  wonderful  specimens 
of  engineering  enterprises.  For  miles,  on  the  precipitous 
sides  of  many  great  canons,  flumes  are  hung  to  the  cliff.. 
Sometimes  deep  gorges  are  crossed  by  means  of  inverted 
syphons.  It  is  estimated  that  over  six  thousand  miles  of 
these  ditches  exist  in  California  to-day,  some  of  them  built 
at  an  expense  of  $25,000  per  mile.  At  least  $100,000,000  is 
said  to  represent  the  capital  stock  of  hydraulic  mining  in 
that  State.  But  with  all  its  advantages  and  effectiveness, 
the  method  of  hydraulic  mining  has  been  a  cause  of  great 
damage  to  the  farming  lands  along  the  rivers  and  streams 
into  which  the  mining  debris  must  necessarily  find  its  outlet. 

By  the  decision  of  the  United  States  Circuit  Court,  given  in 
1884,  the  long  pending  suit  of  the  farmers  against  the  mining 
companies  was  settled  in  favor  of  the  farmers,  and  hydraulic 
mining  was  declared  illegal;  so  that  with  the  exception  of  a 
few  mining  companies  in  the  northwestern  part  of  the  State,, 
where,  owing  to  the  peculiar  condition  of  rivers,  the  debris 
question  has  not  yet  been  raised,  hydraulic  mining  has 
ceased. 

There  are  two  other  methods  belonging  to  the  "  placer"" 
group.  One  of  these  is  river  mining,  which  was  worked  very 


96  The  Recent  Development  of 

-extensively  at  one  time  in  California  and  consists  in  turn- 
ing aside  the  course  of  a  stream  by  means  of  dam  and  canal, 
<or  flume.  The  bed  thus  exposed  is  sometimes  a  very  fruit- 
ful source  of  gold.  Another  very  important  method  is  that 
"known  as  drift  mining.  In  California,  since  the  stoppage  of 
hydraulic  mining,  this  method  is  becoming  very  generally 
used.  The  principal  field  of  operation  in  this  kind  of  mining 
is  on  the  system  of  ancient  river  beds  buried  deep  under 
•volcanic  lava.  The  strata  of  gravel  lying  on  the  bed  are 
mined  by  running  a  tunnel  or  sinking  a  shaft — a  method  in 
many  respects  similar  to  that  pursued  in  coal  mines.  The 
gravel  taken  out  is  washed  in  a  sluice,  or,  where  it  is  too 
hard  and  cemented,  crushed  in  stamp  batteries  and  then 
amalgamated  with  quicksilver. 

The  method  of  mining  vein  gold,  or  the  original  deposits, 
of  gold  is  essentially  the  same  with  that  of  other  metal  min- 
ings. The  shafts  and  levels  must  be  located  in  the  same  man- 
ner, and  the  same  kinds  of  machines  for  drilling,  hoisting, 
pumping,  tramming,  etc.,  must  be  applied.  The  vein  stone 
is  generally  the  opaque  or  translucent  variety  of  quartz, 
varying  in  its  hardness.  The  distribution  of  gold  in  the 
vein  is  not  regular.  Many  quartz  veins  exist  even  in  gold 
regions  without  gold  having  been  found  in  them;  and  in 
those  known  to  be  gold  bearing,  there  are  extensive  portions 
without  gold.  All  this  requires  of  the  miners  the  utmost 
skill  and  technical  knowledge  for  their  working. 

The  process  of  the  extraction  of  gold  from  the  ores  is  not 
as  simple  as  those  of  placer  gold,  and  varies  according  to  the 
constituents  of  the  ores.  If  the  ore  is  comparatively  free 
from  base  metals,  it  may  be  extracted  easily  by  the  amalga- 
mation process.  This  consists  in  first  crushing  and  pulver- 
izing the  ores,  which  was  formerly  done  by  a  simple 
machine  known  as  the  Arrastra,  or  Mexican  crusher,  which 
is  now  almost  entirely  replaced  by  new  ingenious  machines 
such  as. Blake's  rock  crusher  and  the  California  stamp.  The 
stamp  is  an  iron  cylindrical  pestle,  faced  with  a  chilled  cast 
iron  shoe,  and  attached  to  a  round  iron  rod  or  lifter,  the 
whole  weighing  600  to  800  pounds,  resting  on  a  bed  or 


American  Industries.  97 

mortar  made  of  cast  iron.  The  height  of  the  lift  may  be  be- 
tween eight  or  ten  inches,  and  the  number  of  blows  from 
thirty  to  eighty  per  minute.  The  preliminary  crushing  to  a 
suitable  size  being  done  by  a  rock  crusher,  the  ores  are  fur- 
ther pulverized  by  the  stamp  battery.  Quicksilver  is  put  in 
the  mortar  and  forms  an  amalgam  with  the  liberated  particles 
of  gold.  Certain  portions  of  the  particles,  escaping  and  flow- 
ing out  of  the  mortar  upon  an  inclined  table  or  apron,  are 
caught  by  the  amalgamated  plates  with  which  the  apron  is 
covered.  The  remaining  sands  flow  on  to  concentrators  which 
by  their  peculiar  action  retain  the  heavy  and  metallic  par- 
ticles and  discharge  the  lighter  and  worthless  portion.  The 
material  caught  in  the  concentrating  machines  is  accumu- 
lated in  proper  receptacles,  and  treated  with  whatever 
various  processes  the  character  of  the  chemical  combinations 
may  require.  Generally  these  particles  are  composed  of  sul- 
phurets  containing  a  valuable  quantity  of  gold,  and  the 
usual  method  of  treating  them  is  by  chlorination,  which  con- 
sists in  dissolving  the  gold  by  the  action  of  chlorine,  after  a 
preliminary  roasting  to  remove  all  of  the  sulphur,  arsenic,  etc. 
Gold  is  obtained  from  the  amalgam  formed  with  the 
mercury '  by  heating  the  amalgam  in  an  iron  retort,  and 
the  vaporized  mercury  is  recovered  by  a  condenser,  to  be 
used  in  future  operations.  In  California  the  discovery  of 
vein  gold  soon  followed  that  of  placer  gold,  but  the  lack  of 
proper  knowledge  and  skill  required  in  this  kind  of  mining 
retarded  its  development.  Many  mines  were  opened,  and 
many  costly  mills  erected,  yet  most  of  these  enterprises 
resulted  in  disastrous  failure.  Naturally,  vein  mining  has 
been  regarded  as  a  very  risky  undertaking  ;  but,  of  late 
years,  the  great  improvement  in  the  methods  of  treating 
ores,  and,  above  all,  the  introduction  of  new  labor-saving 
machinery,  and  the  adoption  of  steam  instead  of  water- 
power,  changed  the  entire  aspect  of  the  mining.  The  ores, 
which  only  ten  years  since  were  regarded  as  worthless,  are 
now  profitably  worked  in  man}'  mines. 

SILVER. 

Silver  is  also  as  widely  distributed  as  gold,  occurring  in 


98  The  Recent  Development  of 

nearly  all  the  volcanic  rocks  and  some  primary  ones.  In  its- 
native  form,  it  is  usually  alloyed  with  some  other  metals 
such  as  gold,  copper,  bismuth,  etc.  But  it  occurs  more  com- 
monly in  a  mineralized  form,  as  ores,  in  which  it  is  associ- 
ated with  heomine,  iodine,  solenium,  sulphur  and  arsenic, 
and  also  in  combination  with  various  acids.  Unlike  gold, 
the  silver  is  subject  to  the  action  of  many  elements,  and  is 
rarely  found  in  placers  or  alluvial  deposits,  but  is  obtained 
almost  entirely  from  subterranean  mining. 

The  extraction  of  silver  from  ore  is  more  difficult  than  that 
of  gold,  and  the  methods  are  more  complicated  and  varied* 
Ordinarily  these  methods  are  divided  into  three  classes,  to 
wit :  amalgamation,  the  wet  process,  and  smelting.  Each 
of  these  divisions  includes  various  processes  usually  named 
after  the  inventors  or  the  localities  where  first  introduced, 
such  as  Mexican,  Augustine,  etc.  We  may  mention  only  a 
few  of  the  important  ones.  In  amalgamation  the  process  is 
very  similar  to  that  of  gold,  the  silver  being  collected  by 
means  of  mercury  ;  but  it  is  more  complex  for  the  reason 
that  silver  ores  contain  non-metallic  elements.  The  ores 
containing  sulphur,  chlorine,  iodine  or  heomine,  but  free 
from  arsenic  and  antimony,  may  be  most  easily  worked  by  a 
process  known  as  Washoe  or  pan-amalgamation,  originated 
in  Nevada.  As  in  the  case  of  gold,  the  ores  must  be  first 
crushed  and  pulverized  with  water  by  means  of  a  crusher 
and  stamp  mill.  They  are  then  introduced  into  a  cast-iron 
pan  which  grinds  them  into  mud,  the  amalgamation  of  silver 
and  mercury  taking  place  in  the  pan  with  the  aid  of  hot 
water.  Usually  the  ores  associated  with  arsenic,  antimony 
or  iron,  are  crushed  dry,  stamped  and  roasted  with  salt  in  a 
reverberatory  furnace  before  their  amalgamation. 

In  the  wet  process,  the  extraction  of  silver  is  effected  by 
means  of  chemical  action.  Chlorine  is  most  commonly  used, 
and  considered  as  the  cheapest  and  most  suitable  agent  for 
this  purpose.  The  silver  is  converted  into  a  chloride  by 
roasting  the  crushed  ore  in  a  furnace  with  common  salt. 
The  silver  chloride  is  leached  out  from  the  mass  by  use  of  a 
solution  of  calcium  hyposulphite,  and  from  this  hyposulphite 


American  Industries.  99 

solution  the  silver  is  precipitated  as  a  sulphide  of  silver  by 
a  solution  of  calcium  polysulphide.  The  precipitated  sulphide, 
after  undergoing  several  processes  of  drying,  roasting  and 
re-roasting,  is  finally  melted  at  a  high  temperature  with  an 
addition  of  scrap  iron,  which  takes  up  the  remaining  sulphur, 
and  reduces  the  silver  to  a  metallic  state. 

When  silver  is  found  in  galena  or  lead  ores,  smelting 
must  be  used.  Silver  and  lead  combine  very  readily  by  their 
strong  affinity  to  each  other  in  a  state  of  fusion.  The  same 
principle  is  applied  in  case  of  smelting  other  argentiferous 
ores,  such  as  copper  or  iron  pyrites.  They  are  smelted 
together  with  lead  ores,  and  the  silver  is  extracted  in  a  form 
of  lead  alloy.  The  separation  of  silver  from  the  alloy  thus 
obtained  is  effected  by  processes  the  exact  character  of 
which  depends  upon  circumstances.  If  the  alloy  is  sufficiently 
rich  in  silver,  and  tolerably  free  from  copper,  it  may  be  ac- 
complished by  a  process  known  as  "  Cupellation,"  which 
consists  in  fusing  the  alloy  in  a  cupellation  hearth  made  of 
porous  material,  such  as  compressed  bone  ash,  clay  or  marl, 
moistened  with  wood  ash  liquor,  whilst  a  stream  of  air  plays- 
over  its  surface.  The  lead  and  foreign  base  metals  oxidize, 
the  oxides  fuse  and  are  either  run  off  as  melted  oxides  or 
absorbed  by  the  cupel. 

These  are  some  of  the  principles  usually  applied  in  the 
treatment  of  ores.  There  are,  Besides,  hundreds  "of  patented 
processes,  each  intended  to  suit  certain  kinds  of  ores  as  well 
as  the  conditions  of  different  localities. 

The  gold  mining  early  in  this  century  began  in  the  South- 
ern States.  About  1830,  the  industry  grew  to  a  considerable 
importance,  and  the  annual  production  of  gold  rose  to  nearly  a 
million  of  dollars.  According  to  Prof.  Whitney's  estimate,, 
during  the  period  between  1804  and  1850,  $15, 172,300  of  gold 
was  raised  from  these  sources,  distributed  among  the  follow- 
ing States:  Georgia,  North  and  South  Carolina,  Tennessee, 
Alabama  and  Virginia.  In  1848  the  well-known  discovery 
in  California  took  place.  The  intense  excitement  which 
followed  this  event  brought  thousands  of  emigrants  from  all 
parts  of  the  world.  By  the  end  of  the  year,  miners  were  already 


TOO  The  Recent  Development  of 

at  work  along  the  western  slope  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  from 
the  Toulumme  to  Feather  River  a  distance  of  fully  a  hundred 
and  fifty  miles.  It  is  estimated  that  no  less  than  one 
hundred  thousand  men  were  engaged  in  mining  during  the 
years  1852  and  1853.  The  yield  of  gold  reached  its  greatest 
productiveness  during  the  same  years,  the  annual  production 
being  over  $60,000,000.  But  the  most  productive  parts  of 
placers  were  soon  worked  out  and  the  annual  yield  fell 
steadily  after  1860.  The  average  yield  for  the  fifteen  years, 
1865-79,  was  about  seventeen  millions.  Since  1880  the  aver- 
age is  not  more  than  fifteen  millions. 

The  gradual  exhaustion  of  the  placers  set  free  a  large  num- 
ber of  miners,  and  the  territories  adjoining  California  were 
overrun  by  thousands  of  miners  in  search  of  gold.  Within 
a  few  years  an  extraordinary  number  of  discoveries  were 
made,  some  of  which  proved  to  be  of  great  importance.  By 
far  the  most  important — the  cause  of  another  great  excite- 
ment— was  the  discovery  and  successful  opening  of  the  Corn- 
stock  lode,  situated  in  the  western  part  of  Nevada.  In  many 
respects  this  lode  is  said  to  be  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
mines  in  the  world.  Usually  it  is  believed  to  be  a  fissure 
vein.  It  runs  roughly  north  and  south  along  the  eastern 
slope  of  a  range  of  hills,  and  has  been  traced  for  the  extent 
of  more  than  four  miles.  About  thirty-five  mines  have  been 
opened  along  its  course,  the  most  noted  of  them  being  those 
known  as  the  great  "Bonanza"  mines.  These  mines  are 
worked  to  a  greater  depth  than  any  mines  in  the  world. 
Many  of  the  shafts  are  sunk  beyond  3,000  feet.  The  extra- 
ordinary temperature  in  such  depth,  in  spite  of  all  improved 
means  of  ventilation,  is  one  of  the  greatest  obstacles  to  this 
mining. 

The  Comstock  since  its  opening,  in  1859,  has  produced 
$316,000,000  of  bullion,  of  which  $190,000,000  was  gold  and 
$126, 000,000  silver.  The  yield  of  the  lode  attained  its  culmi- 
nation in  1877,  the  total  amount  of  production  for  that  year 
being  estimated  at  $36,301,536.  But  since  1880  it  has  fallen 
so  low  that  the  annual  yield  has  never  exceeded  $5,000,- 
ooo.  The  rich  deposits  of  the  vein  known  as  "Bonanzas  " 


American  Industries.  101 

seem  to  be  exhausted.  There  are  yet  millions  of  tons  of  low- 
grade  ore,  and  although  they  cannot  be  worked  at  present, 
because  of  high  wages,  high  cost  of  transportation,  and  the 
imperfect  methods  of  reduction,  they  may  perhaps  in  the  no 
distant  future  prove  to  be  a  fruitful  source  of  wealth. 

The  excitement  caused  by  the  opening  of  the  Comstock 
was  kept  up  for  some  years  by  a  series  of  remarkable  dis- 
coveries all  over  the  State.  Among  them,  those  in  the  dis- 
tricts around  Eureka  were  of  great  importance.  With  all 
their  extraordinary  deposits,  the  mines  in  these  localities, 
however,  lacked  the  quality  of  permanence.  Many  of  them 
after  their  remarkable  but  short  prosperity  have  apparently 
become  exhausted  and  others  are  rapidly  approaching  this 
state.  The  State  of  Nevada,  which  at  one  time  occupied  the 
foremost  place  in  the  production  of  precious  metals,  has  now 
fallen  to  the  fifth  rank. 

The  Territory  of  Utah,  where  the  once  celebrated  Kmma 
mine  is  situated,  has  had  many  prosperous  mines.  The 
silver  here  is  generally  associated  with  lead  and  various 
other  base  metals,  requiring  an  improved  process  of  smelt- 
ing. The  Ontario  mine,  situated  in  the  northeastern  corner 
of  the  Territory,  is  still  one  of  the  most  productive  mines 
in  the  country.  Since  its  discovery  in  1872  the  production 
has  been  continuous,  and  it  is  said  that  over  $9,000,000  has 
been  paid  in  dividends  by  the  mining  company  since  1877. 

The  State  of  Colorado  is  now  the  most  important  silver 
producing  State  in  the  country.  It  is  unexcelled  in  the  mag- 
nitude and  the  variety  of  its  metalliferous  deposits.  But  the 
largest  portion  of  the  product  in  the  State  is  derived  from 
pyrites  and  galena,  and  their  decomposition.  Besides  the 
State  has  produced  a  large  quantity  of  gold,  and  particularly 
in  the  earlier  period,  the  placer  mines  along  the  mountain 
streams  were  very  prosperous.  It  is  estimated  that  upwards 
of  $20,000,000  of  gold  was  furnished  from  these  sources  from 
1859  to  1872.  The  last  of  the  great  mining  excitements  in 
the  country  took  place  in  1877  in  the  district  of  L,eadville, 
situated  in  the  heart  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  The  rapidity 
with  which  the  mines  in  these  localities  were  developed  was 


102 


The  Recent  Development  of 


•extraordinary.  Within  two  years  from  its  discovery  the 
population  of  the  town  of  I^eadville,  which  then  was  not 
more  than  two  hundred,  increased  to  nearly  fifteen  thousand. 
In  1880,  there  were  already  fourteen  smelting  works  and 
thirty  productive  mines  around  this  district.  The  total  value 
of  product  from  these  mines  during  the  eight  years  after  its 
discovery  is  estimated  at  $95,864,738.  Nearly  half  of  the 
annual  product  of  silver  in  Colorado  comes  from  these  mines. 
Generally  speaking,  the  ores  smelted  in  the  State  are  dimin- 
ishing in  their  average  value,  yet  the  total  amount  of  the 
annual  product  is  on  the  increase,  owing  to  the  improve- 
ment in  the  machinery  and  methods  of  mining,  and  the  great 
progress  of  the  smelting  process,  which  makes  it  profitable 
to  work  a  much  lower  grade  of  ores. 

Montana  is  one  of  the  most  hopeful  States  in  the  country. 
"The  increased  facility  of  railway  transportation  of  late  years 
is  rapidly  developing  its  immense  resources  of  gold  and 
silver.  Already,  the  annual  produce  of  the  State  has  grown 
upwards  of  $20,000,000.  Much,  however,  remains  to  be 
done  in  exploring  these  regions.  The  same  may  be  said  of 
Idaho,  whose  annual  product  is  steadily  increasing. 

The  following  table  is  the  estimate  taken  from  the  report 
of  the  mint  for  1889,  and  will  show  the  relative  importance 
of  the  metal-producing  States,  as  it  stands  at  present: 


STATE  OR  TERRITORY. 

GOLD. 

SILVER. 

TOTAL  VALUE. 

Alaska. 

$      900  ooo 

*         10  143 

$       QIO  341 

QOO  OOO 

I   O1O   1Q1 

2,8lQ  1Q1 

'California                         .... 

13  ooo  ooo 

1,014,141 

I4,O14  141 

Colorado                . 

i,  500,000 

20,686,868 

24,186,868 

Dakota               

2,900,000 

64,  646 

2,964,646 

Idaho                  

2,000,000 

4,105,050 

6,105,050 

1,  500,000 

IQ,  107,010 

22,801,010 

3,000,000 

•y>oyo>yoy 
6,206,060 

9,2O6,O6O 

New  Mexico  .       

1,000,000 

r,46i,oio 

2,46l,OIO 

1,200,000 

38,787 

1,238,787 

Texas  

300,000 

3OO,OOO 

Utah                               

500,000 

0,050,505 

Q,55O,5O5 

"Wasliiiisrton      .    .       

175,000 

101,414 

278,434 

Other  States          

1Q2,OOO 

83,443 

475,443 

Total  

$32,967,000 

$64,768,730 

$97,735,730 

American  Industries.  103 

The  production  of  gold  has  diminished  considerably  as 
compared  with  that  of  former  years,  chiefly  owing  to  the  re- 
duced yields  of  California  and  Nevada.  But  the  fluctuation 
of  late  years  is  comparatively  slight,  and  many  authorities 
maintain  that  the  present  rate  will  continue  for  some  time  to 
come.  On  the  other  hand,  we  see  an  enormous  increase  in 
the  annual  prouction  of  silver,  and  apparently  its  culminat- 
ing point  is  not  reached  yet.  It  may  not  be  uninteresting  to 
note  here  that  the  world's  annual  production  of  gold  and 
silver  is  about  $260,000,000,  that  of  1889  being  estimated  at 
$281,747,000,  nearly  one-third  of  which  comes  from  this 
country. 

The  effect  of  this  rapid  development  of  mining  resources, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  actual  amount  of  precious  metals  it  has 
given  the  nation,  is  exceedingly  important.  Had  it  not  been 
for  this  branch  of  industry  the  entire  condition  of  the  West 
would  have  been  very  different  from  what  it  is  to-day.  It 
would  be  hard  to  find  any  among  those  great  States  and  cities 
existing  in  the  wrest  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  which  does  not 
owe  its  origin  directly  or  indirectly  to  the  stimulus  of  these 
two  metals.  In  this  instance  at  least  we  must  agree  to  the 
saying,  that  the  miner  is  the  pioneer  of  civilization. 

One  of  the  most  peculiar  features  of  this  industry  is  its 
enormous  risk  and  uncertainty,  which  makes  it  so  attractive 
to  adventuresome  people.  Almost  every  discovery  is  thus 
attended  with  great  excitement  and  blind  speculation,  fol- 
lowed by  consequent  depression.  But,  on  the  whole,  we 
must  admit  that  the  nature  of  the  industry  has  changed  con- 
siderably. The  tendency  has  been  to  reduce  its  speculative 
character.  This  is  no  longer  an  industry  in  which  a  fortune 
can  be  made  out  of  nothing.  Every  step  in  the  progress  of 
science  and  mechanical  arts  adds  a  corresponding  security 
to  the  business.  The  need  of  large  capital  and  sound  prin- 
ciples of  business  becomes  more  and  more  a  predominating 
element  of  these  enterprises. 

HlSAYA   IWASAKI. 


The  Recent  Development  of 


CONCLUSION. 
NEW  INDUSTRIAL  CENTERS. 

Industrial  changes  in  the  United  States  have  been  many 
and  marked  in  recent  years.  In  nothing  is  this  more  clearly 
seen  than  in  the  growth  of  new  centers  of  industry  and  com- 
merce. They  have  sprung  up  in  all  parts  of  the  country. 
Especially  is  this  the  case  in  the  South  and  West.  Here  the 
causes  tending  to  industrial  growth  are  most  active,  and 
their  results  are  most  clearly  seen.  With  the  increase  of 
the  means  of  transportation,  and  the  tendency  of  population 
to  concentrate  in  cities,  have  grown  those  new  industrial 
centers  of  which  we  hear  so  much  to-day.  In  all  cases  they 
have  been  located  according  to  natural  lawrs  ;  either  because 
of  advantageous  positions  for  commerce,  or  because  the  de- 
velopment of  certain  districts  has  made  manufacturing  profit- 
able. And,  in  the  development  of  any  industrial  center,  it  is  to 
be  observed  that  the  resources  and  advantages  that  industry, 
intelligence  and  capital  have  supplied,  have  co-operated  with 
the  resources  and  advantages  of  nature. 

What  these  new  industrial  centers  are,  their  location  and 
chief  characteristics  will  be  most  clearly  seen  by  grouping 
them.  In  nearly  all  of  them  will  be  found  some  charac- 
teristic industries,  determined  largely  by  the  nature  of  the 
region  in  which  they  are  situated. 

The  group  of  most  importance  in  the  South  is  that  of  those 
towns  having  Chattanooga  for  a  center.  In  fact,  Chatta- 
nooga may  be  called  "  The  Hub  of  the  Central  South,"  and 
around  her  cluster  Nashville,  Knoxville,  Atlanta  and  Birm- 
ingham, and  many  smaller  places.  These  towns  have  come 
into  industrial  prominence  chiefly  through  the  development 
of  the  great  deposits  of  iron  ore  and  coal  found  extensively 
in  eastern  Tennessee,  northern  Alabama  and  Georgia.  As 
a  consequence,  these  cities  have  become  centers  for  the 
manufacture  of  iron  and  steel,  and  kindred  industries  have 


American  Industries.  105 

arisen.     In  Chattanooga  the  most  important  industry  is  that 
of  iron  manufacture.     Birmingham,  Florence,  and  Ft.  Payne, 
Alabama,  have  also  been  created  largely  by  the  growth  of 
iron  manufacture.     Other  important  industries  of  this  group 
are  those  of  coal  mining  and  lumber. 

Another  important  industrial  group  in  the  South  is  found 
in  those  new  towns  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley,  and  those 
that  have  grown  up  along  the  line  of  the  Norfolk  and  West- 
ern Railroad  in  Virginia,  and  the  district  around  Middles- 
borough,  Kentucky.  Here  also  the  character  of  the  country 
determines  the  kind  of  industries.  The  region  abounds  in 
iron,  manganese,  slates,  fireclay,  etc.,  and  is  heavily  wooded. 
Hence,  in  Roanoke,  in  Shenandoah,  in  Savernake  and  in 
Staunton,  Virginia,  in  Middlesborough,  Kentucky,  and  in 
other  towns,  factories  and  mills  have  been  erected  to  develop 
these  natural  resources. 

Many  more  centers  might  be  named,  but  three  may  be 
taken  as  types  of  the  combined  forces  now  at  work  in  the 
South,  tending  to  build  up  new  centers  of  industry. 

Florence,  Alabama,  has  been  mainly  developed  by  South- 
ern men,  though  Northern  capitalists  have  recently  invested 
over  a  million  dollars  there.  Ft.  Payne,  in  the  same  State, 
is  wholly  the  work  of  New  England  men  and  money. 
Lastly,  Middlesborough,  Kentucky,  is  the  offspring  of  Eng- 
lish capital  and  brains.  This  town  has  also  received  a  full 
measure  of  American  energy  and  wealth. 

It  is  within  the  past  six  years  that  the  most  notable  in- 
dustrial changes  have  been  seen  in  the  South.  Since  the 
Atlanta  Exposition  of  1885,  which  attracted  general  atten- 
tion to  the  mineral  wealth  in  this  part  of  the  country,  that 
city  has  become  a  prominent  industrial  center.  From  Jan- 
uary i,  1886,  to  December  31,  1889,  nearly  14,0x30  new 
manufacturing  and  mining  enterprises  were  organized  in  the 
South,  and  thousands  of  old  plants  greatly  enlarged. 

In  the  West  the  growth  of  new  industrial  centers  is  even 
more  surprising.  One  of  the  most  important  manufacturing 
regions  of  tliis  country  is  that  in  which  Chicago  is  situated. 
There  manufacturing  towns  are  found  in  close  proximity  to 


io6  The  Recent  Development  q/ 

one  another  all  through  northern  Illinois  and  Indiana,  south- 
ern Wisconsin  and  Michigan.  Chief  of  these  are  Milwaukee, 
La  Crosse  and  Racine,  Wisconsin;  Elgin,  Rock  Island  and 
Peoria,  Illinois;  Logansport  and  South  Bend,  Indiana;  and 
Saginaw,  Lansing  and  Detroit,  Michigan. 

In  the  West,  more  particularly  than  in  the  South,  it  will 
be  found  that  each  group,  or  each  town  in  a  group  sometimes, 
has  its  specialty  or  own  peculiar  industry  or  industries.  The 
northern  peninsula  of  Michigan  is  a  mining  region.  Large 
quantities  of  copper  and  iron  ore  are  mined  there,  and  much 
of  it  finds  its  way  to  the  manufacturing  towns  of  the  south- 
ern part  of  the  State,  where  it  is  used  in  the  manufacture  of 
many  articles  of  domestic  use.  The  lumber  industry,  which 
is  a  large  one  in  Michigan,  is  kept  active  in  supplying 
the  industrial  towns  in  the  southern  peninsula.  Detroit 
and  her  neighboring  towns,  have  large  manufactures  of  iron, 
steel  and  castings,  machinery  and  railway  cars.  Logansport 
and  South  Bend,  Indiana,  seem  to  make  a  specialty  of  farm 
wagons;  Peoria,  in  Illinois,  is  the  greatest  distilling  town  in 
the  United  States;  while  the  works  of  the  Elgin  Watch  Com- 
pany, in  Elgin,  are  known  to  all  the  world.  Milwaukee,  in 
Wisconsin,  makes  a  specialty  of  beer  and  bricks,  and  her 
triple  expansion  and  Corliss  engines  furnish  the  motive 
power  to  many  an  Eastern  steamboat  and  Western  lake 
vessel,  and  turn  many  a  factory  wheel  throughout  the  coun- 
try. In  La  Crosse  the  lumber  industry  engages  the  largest 
part  of  the  attention  of  the  inhabitants,  and  employs  most 
of  their  capital.  But  most  important  of  this  group  of  in- 
dustrial centers  is  Chicago. 

Hitherto  this  city  has  been  noted  chiefly  for  its  vast  com- 
merce, and  as  a  distributing  center.  But  Chicago,  situated 
in  one  of  the  most  important  industrial  regions  of  the  coun- 
try, has  become  one  of  the  greatest  manufacturing  centers  in 
the  world.  During  the  year  1890  the  increase  of  industries  of 
various  kinds  in  Chicago  has  been  greater  than  in  any 
previous  year.  The  movement  of  manufactures  towards  this 
city  was  one  of  the  marked  features  of  the  twelve  months 
just  past.  It  has  been  estimated  that  there  are  more  manu- 


American  Industries.  107 

facturing  interests  now  negotiating  for  locations  here  than 
there  are  in  actual  operation  in  the  entire  city. 

Chicago  is  especially  noted  as  a  center  for  the  manufac- 
ture of  iron  and  steel,  and  the  number  of  rolling  mills  in  the 
immediate  vicinity  of  the  city  is  very  large.  The  value  of 
their  product  for  1890  was  $22,275,000,  and  the  business 
gave  employment  to  nearly  15,000  hands..  Other  important 
industries  are  those  of  meat  packing  and  book  publishing, 
and  the  wholesale  business  of  Chicago  ranks  second  only  to 
that  of  New  York. 

The  next  group  of  importance  in  the  West  is  that  com- 
prising the  "Twin  Cities,"  Minneapolis  and  St.  Paul,  and 
Duluth  at  the  head  of  great  lake  navigation  on  Lake  Superior. 
Of  these  cities,  Minneapolis  is  the  most  important  from  an 
industrial  point  of  view.  Here  the  geographical  situation 
has  especially  determined  the  character  which  the  industries 
of  Minneapolis  were  to  take.  This  city  is  the  entrepot  for 
the  vast  grain  fields  of  the  Dakotas,  and  the  natural  lumber 
market  for  the  upper  Mississippi  Valley.  Increased  trans- 
portation facilities,  and  the  utilization  of  the  immense  water 
power  at  the  Falls  of  St.  Anthony,  have  made  Minneapolis 
famous  as  a  flour  milling  and  lumber  center.  In  the  lumber 
industry  great  changes  have  occurred  in  this  region  in  the 
past  few  years.  In  the  manufacture  of  certain  grades  of 
lumber,  the  center  is  being  shifted  from  Michigan,  to  points 
further  West,  and  Minneapolis  is  gaining  by  this  change,  as 
is  shown  in  the  increased  output  of  her  mills.  The  increase 
in  the  number  of  feet  of  lumber  cut  at  this  city  in  1890  over 
1889  was  67,718,112.  As  a  flour  milling  center,  Minneapolis 
is  perhaps  the  greatest  in  the  world.  Although  during  last 
year  no  new  mills  were  built,  the  daily  capacity  of  several  of  . 
them  was  greatly  enlarged. 

St.  Paul,  whose  corporate  limits  touch  those  of  Minneapo- 
lis, shares  in  the  latter' s  distinction  of  being  an  industrial 
center.  However,  St.  Paul  is  content  to  do  most  of  the  job- 
bing trade,  and  the  shipping  of  the  products  of  Minneapolis' s 
mills  forms  a  large  part  of  the  commerce  of  St.  Paul,  which 
is  at  the  head  of  river  navigation  on  the  Mississippi. 


io8  The  Recent  Development  of 

In  the  formation  of  manufacturing  centers,  the  first  ques- 
tion is  that  of  abundance  of  raw  materials  and  cheap  transit. 
These  two  fundamental  conditions  are  possessed  by  Duluth. 
The  natural  resources  are  very  varied,  and  it  is  possible  to 
unite  in  Duluth  a  great  iron,  steel  and  wood  manufacturing 
center.  During  the  past  year  many  new  plants  have  been 
started  here,  and  several  large  firms  have  transferred  their 
base  from  old  points  to  this  city.  Among  the  great  manu- 
facturing plants,  the  Minnesota  Car  Company's  was  the 
pioneer.  The  works  commenced  operations  a  little  over  a 
year  ago.  Other  firms  that  have  just  located  here  and  are 
helping  to  make  Duluth  an  industrial  center  are  the  Duluth 
Iron  and  Steel  Company,  with  an  authorized  capital  of 
$1,000,000,  $200,000  of  which  has  been  paid  in;  the  Iron 
Bay  Works,  employing  300  men;  the  West  Duluth  Manu- 
facturing Company,  which  employs  50  men  «ind  turns  out 
hardwood  finishings,  and  other  manufactures  in  wood.  Lum- 
ber and  flour  mills  are  also  being  established,  and  the  outlook 
for  their  success  is  very  bright. 

Nebraska,  Kansas  and  Missouri  boast  of  new  industrial 
centers,  and  Omaha  and  Kansas  City  form  the  chief  centers 
of  the  third  group  in  the  West.  A  special  industry  in 
Kansas  City  is  the  sale  of  agricultural  implements.  This 
sale  was  put  down  at  $15,000,000  for  1887,  and  has  since 
largely  increased.  This  was  a  fourth  of  the  entire  reported 
product  manufactured  in  the  United  States.  The  growth  of 
both  Kansas  City  and  Omaha  is  largely  accounted  for  by  the 
existence  of  the  vast  rich  agricultural  regions  to  the  west 
and  southwest,  by  the  development  of  Missouri  and  Nebraska, 
and  by  the  facilities  for  distribution.  Kansas  City  and  Omaha 
are  great  railroad  centers,  no  less  than  fifteen  lines  and  sys- 
tems centering  in  the  former  place.  Other  important  indus- 
tries in  these  cities  are  meat  packing,  and  the  manufacture 
of  flour. 

Important,  more  as  a  commercial  than  an  industrial  center, 
is  Galveston,  off  to  the  southwest.  This  city  is  the  natural 
doorway  for  the  egress  of  the  products  of  the  State  of  Texas, 
of  the  new  centers  arising  in  the  Rocky  Mountains,  especially 


American  Industries.  109 

Denver,  and  to  a  large  extent,  of  the  Mississippi  Valley. 
Already  these  regions  are  sending  their  products  to  Galves- 
ton  for  export,  and  last  year  the  shipments  of  cotton  from  this 
port  amounted  to  179,465,544  pounds.  Wool  and  flour  form 
a  large  part  of  the  bulky  freight  shipped  hence.  Galveston 
is  a  comparatively  isolated  center,  and  the  same  is  true  of 
Denver,  in  the  Rocky  Mountains,  some  1,200  miles  to  the 
northwest.  But  the  two  are  intimately  connected  through 
their  commerce. 

Considering  the  fact  that  Denver  is  the  center  of  a  very 
important  mining  region,  one  would  naturally  suppose  that 
its  most  important  products  as  a  manufacturing  center  would 
relate  to  the  mining  industry.  The  business  of  smelting  and 
refining  is  the  most  valuable  one  in  the  city.  In  1889  the 
value  of  the  product  amounted  to  $17,305,189.  But  Denver 
is  not  a  mining  town  alone.  The  building  trades,  the  flour 
mills,  the  breweries,  and  the  foundry  and  machine  shops 
occupy  prominent  places  in  the  detailed  statistics  of  manu- 
factures. The  products  amount  to  $88,000,000  per  annum, 
and  are  being  rapidly  augmented. 

In  the  northwestern-most  part  of  the  United  States  lies 
another  group  of  new  centers  of  industry  and  commerce.  It 
is  composed  of  the  towns  of  Tacoma  and  Seattle  on  Puget 
Sound  and  Portland,  Oregon,  on  the  Columbia  River.  Until 
very  recently  these  places  have  been  chiefly  commercial 
centers,  but  are  now  developing  certain  classes  of  manufac- 
ture, corresponding  to  the  products  of  the  Pacific  Northwest. 
Washington  and  Oregon  are  closely  allied  in  industry  and 
commerce,  and  the  features  of  Seattle,  Tacoma  and  Portland 
are  very  similar. 

Seattle  is  the  largest  of  the  Sound  cities,  but  as  yet  its 
chief  characteristic  is  commerce.  It  is  the  headquarters  for 
most  of  the  Sound  business,  and  all  of  the  steamboat  lines, 
with  one  or  two  exceptions,  make  it  their  chief  point.  The 
country  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  Seattle  abounds  in  coal, 
and  the  mining  of  coal  and  its  shipment  from  this  port  is 
now  the  most  important  industry. 

Tacoma' s  manufactories  are  but  just   starting   into  life. 


no  The  Recent  Development  of 

The  first  to  begin  was  the  lumber  industry,  and  this  con- 
tinues to  be  the  most  important.  Other  prominent  indus- 
tries are  those  of  smelting  and  metal  working. 

The  growth  of  Portland  as  a  manufacturing  center  has 
been  very  recent.  Indeed,  until  the  last  few  years,  the  coun- 
try was  too  sparcely  settled  to  make  a  direct  demand  for 
manufacturing  on  any  considerable  scale,  and  it  was  not  until 
1886  that  the  era  of  progress  began.  The  returns  of  manu- 
factures are  not  complete,  but  some  knowledge  of  their  ex- 
tent and  increase  may  be  gained  from  the  figures  for  1889. 
In  that  year  the  number  of  hands  employed  in  manufactures 
was  7,862  as  against  2,764  for  1886;  and  the  value  of  the 
output  for  1889  was  $20,183,000,  as  against  $5,447,000  for 
1886.  Portland  has  not  only  good  transportation  systems, 
but  an  abundance  of  cheap  fuel  and  raw  material,  and  a 
splendid  water  power  in  the  Falls  of  the  Willamette  River. 
This  city  is  now  the  center  of  the  wool  trade  of  the  Pacific 
Northwest. 

The  last  group  of  new  industrial  centers  lies  in  California. 
It  comprises  San  Francisco  and  the  other  coast  towns,  Stock- 
ton and  those  in  the  great  fruit-growing  regions  in  the  in- 
terior of  the  State. 

According  to  the  recent  census  reports  the  industrial  pro- 
ducts of  San  Francisco  are  worth  at  least  $120,000,000,  an 
increase  in  the  decade  of  about  62  per  cent.  In  1890  the 
$120,000,000  worth  of  products  were  contributed  by  89 
branches  of  manufacture,  and  represents  the  output  of  1,638 
factories.  The  products  of  the  manufactures  of  the  entire 
State  are  valued  at  $165,000,000  for  1890. 

California  has  $80,000,000  invested  in  vineyards,  and  in 
most  of  the  southern  counties  orchards  and  vineyards  are 
supplanting  wheat  farms,  and  in  the  northern  counties,  min- 
ing is  giving  way  to  horticulture.  The  canning  and  shipping 
of  fruit  is,  therefore,  an  important  industry  in  most  of  the 
new  centers  rapidly  growing  up  in  all  parts  of  the  State. 
The  shipment  of  fresh  fruit  in  refrigerator  cars  is  an  import- 
ant industry  ;  while  the  drying  and  packing  of  fruit  engages 
the  attention  and  capital  of  the  new  industrial  centers  of 


American  Industries.  in 

southern  California.  There  is  very  little  manufacturing  in 
such  places  as  San  Diego,  Los  Angeles  and  Monterey. 
Commerce  is  most  active  in  these  towns,  and  fruit  shipping 
is  one  of  the  most  important  industries.  Stockton,  near  the 
center  of  the  State,  is  coming  to  the  front  as  an  industrial 
center,  and  paper  making  is  an  important  industry  there. 

The  causes  that  have  tended  to  develop  new  industrial 
centers  are  many,  but  the  principal  ones  may  be  summed  up 
under  four  heads.  First,  the  inducements  that  are  offered  by 
State  legislatures  in  the  lightening  of  taxation  or  removing 
it  altogether  from  particular  industries,  and  the  bonuses 
offered  by  railway  and  other  corporations.  Second,  the 
growth  of  railway  transportation  facilities.  Third,  the 
migratory  character  of  the  American  people,  and  fourth,  the 
speculative  spirit  and  the  growth  of  capital. 

Of  the  many  industrial  changes  now  going  on  in  the 
United  States,  the  growth  of  new  industrial  centers  is  one  of 
the  most  important  and  far  reaching  in  its  results.  These 
centers  indicate  the  growth  of  the  country  in  material  well 
being,  and  also  the  advance  of  the  whole  nation,  economically, 
socially  and  politically. 

CHARLES.  R.  LEE. 


TWO 


BY  SIMON  N.  PATTEN,  Pn.D.  (Halle). 


Profess 


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